LIBRARY 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


Class 


The  Greenback  Movement 

OF 

1875  - 1884 

AND 

Wisconsin's  Part  In  It. 


FKOM   A  STEEL  1>I.ATE    M  \  1.1     IN   18TT 


The  Greenback  Movement 


OF 


1875 . 1884 


AND 


Wisconsin's  Part  In  It. 


BY 


ELLIS  B.  USHER, 

Member  American  Political  Science  Association, 

American  Historical  Association,  and  The  State  Historical 

Society  of  Wisconsin. 


Published  by  ELLIS  B.  USHER 


Press  of  The  Meisenheimer  Printing  Company 


MILWAUKEE 


Copyright 

ELLIS  B.   USHER, 

Milwaukee.  Wis. 

1911 


Edition  Limited  to  500  Copies 


Preface 


This  pamphlet  is,  mainly,  the  result  of  an  investigation 
pursued  for  another  purpose,  through  which  I  discovered 
that  facts  regarding  the  Greenback  Movement,  that  began 
in  1875  and  did  not  entirely  disappear  until  1884,  were  hard 
to  establish,  and  that  no  attempt  seems  to  have  been  made, 
heretofore,  to  assemble  them  for  useful  reference.  Encyclo- 
paedias and  political  reference  books,  as  a  rule,  dismiss  the 
whole  subject  with  a  few  sentences. 

In  the  ensuing  pages  I  have  done  little  more  than  to 
assemble,  in  more  useful  form,  facts  and  references  which, 
though  by  no  means  forming  a  complete  or  comprehensive 
historical  treatment  of  the  Greenback  Movement,  even  in 
Wisconsin,  to  which  the  greater  portion  of  the  material 
pertains,  will,  in  this  shape,  prove  to  be  valuable  as  well  as 
suggestive  to  the  student.  Faithful  effort  has  been  made  to 
verify  statements  of  fact  and  to  annotate  their  sources. 

It  is  hoped  that  this  data  may  prove  of  sufficient  use 
to  the  student,  and  to  the  future  historian,  to  justify  the 
labor  of  putting  it  together,  and  that  it  may  assist  in  pre- 
serving the  evidence  of  the  first,  and  one  of  the  most  interest- 
ing and  far  reaching  revolts  against  the  Republican  Party. 
This  revolt  was  much  more  formidable,  and  the  men  who 
led,  and  those  who  participated  in  it,  were  of  much  greater 
political  consequence,  than  has  been  generally  appreciated. 
Everything  of  the  current  Republican  discussion  of  the 
time,  whether  spoken  or  written,  belittled  the  movement 
and  sneered  at  those  engaged  in  it,  to  an  extent,  which, 
superimposed  upon  its  failure,  left  the  public  mind  with  an 
impression  of  its  inconsequence  as  well  as  fruitlessness. 

Not  only  were  the  old  parties,  at  that  time,  thoroughly 
alarmed  by  Greenbackism,  but  subsequent  events  have 
demonstrated  that  they  were  alarmed  with  good  reason,  for 
many  of  the  proposals  of  the  Greenback  Party  have  since 
been  justified  by  being  written  into  law. 


The  first  organized  and  pointed  criticisms  of  corporations 
and  the  earliest  demand  for  their  control  by  the  Government, 
came  from  the  Greenbackers.  So  did  the  demand  for  the 
conservation  of  the  public  domain  for  actual  settlers.  Their 
natural  successors,  the  Populists,  took  up  the  cause  and 
began  to  give  it  effect  in  the  early  nineties. 

By  reason  of  the  important  place  early  taken  among  the 
Greenback  leaders  of  the  country  by  Mr.  Edward  P.  Allis  of 
Milwaukee,  and  the  wide  attention  attracted  by  a  paper 
written  by  President  Steele  of  Lawrence  University,  this 
state's  place  in  the  National  Movement  was  far  more  in- 
fluential and  prominent  than  the  merely  numerical  strength 
of  the  party  in  Wisconsin  warranted,  and  in  that  fact  lies  one 
of  the  features  of  special  interest  in  considering  the  purely 
local  history  of  the  movement. 

I  submit  this  pamphlet  to  those  into  whose  hands  it  may 
fall,  in  the  hope  that  the  materials  here  gathered  together 
may  inspire  more  capable  laborers  in  this  interesting  and, 
heretofore,  quite  undeveloped  field  of  political  history. 

ELLIS  B.  USHER. 
Milwaukee, 

June  21,  1911. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  ONE 

Background  of  Greenbackism,    .      .      .     Page       6 

CHAPTER  TWO 

The  Greenback  Issue,         10 

CHAPTER  THREE 

The  Wisconsin  Greenback  Movement,     .  16 

CHAPTER  FOUR 

Organizing  Wisconsin, 30 

CHAPTER  FIVE 

Mr.  Allis  Nominated  For  Governor,        .  37 

CHAPTER  SIX 

Wisconsin's    Candidate   for   President 

of   the   United  States,     ....  53 

APPENDIX  NO.  1, 

Steele's  Pamphlet,  The  Currency  Question,  64 

APPENDIX  NO.  2, 

Labor  and  Greenback  National  Platforms.  77 

INDEX  to  Names  and  Subjects 84 


Background  of  Greenbackism, 


CHAPTER  ONE. 


THE  greenback  theories  which   came  to  the  fore 
after  the  Civil  War  were  new  only  in  name  and 
immediate  application.     They  embodied  ideas  of 
irredeemable   paper   money   that   early   in   the 
Eighteenth  Century  had  made  John  Law  for  a  time  the 
financial  wizard  of  France,  and  that  have  recurred  in  this 
country  with  every  season  of  financial  stress,  from  the  days 
of  the  *Revolution  to  the  free  silver  stampede  of  the  Demo- 
cratic Party  in  1896. 

Robert  Schilling  of  Milwaukee,  who  was  one  of  the  early 
and  persistent  organizers  in  Labor  politics,  in  a  fpamphlet 
issued  in  1896,  refers  to  a  pamphlet,  later  enlarged  to  a  book, 
written  after  the  panic  of  1837,  by  Edward  Kellogg,  as  "the 
bible  of  the  early  currency  reformers,"  and  to  {Alexander 
Campbell,  of  La  Salle,  Illinois,  as  "their  Moses." 

Edward  Kellogg  was  a  New  York  merchant  who  from  a 
victim  of  the  "hard  times  of  '37"  became  a  student  of 
finance  and  an  authority  for  arguments  in  favor  of  a  currency 
"limited  only  by  the  wants  of  business." 

To  him  is  credited  the  discovery  of  the  proposition  for 
an  interconvertible  bond  currency,  which  became  the  back- 
bone of  the  greenback  doctrine  of  thirty-five  years  later. 


*See  history  of  the  Bank  of  North  America. 

t"Official   Souvenir  of 
ted  States  of  America," 

^Member  of  Congress. 


t"Official   Souvenir  of  National   Convention   Peoples   Party  of  the 
United  States  of  America,"  St.  Louis,  July  22,  1896. 


Kellogg's  proposition,  in  condensed  form,  is  found  in  the 
preface  to  an  *edition  of  his  work  published  in  1883,  pre- 
pared by  his  daughter,  and  disciple,  Mary  Kellogg  Putnam. 
She  writes  as  follows: 

He  saw  that  money  ought  not  to  be  made  of  gold  and  silver,  which 
cannot  be  had  in  sufficient  quantities  to  meet  any  great  financial  crisis, 
and  which  nobody  wants  when  confidence  exists;  that  it  must  be  a  legal 
representative  of  value,  and  thought  it  ought  to  be  founded  on  real  estate, 
or  on  a  public  credit  resting  on  the  national  resources,  he  saw  how  to  issue 
it  in  exchange  for  mortgages  of  productive  real  property — there  was  no 
great  public  debt —  but  how  to  redeem  it?  He  tried  it  in  every  way  he 
could  imagine;  he  knew  there  must  be  some  right  way  of  doing  it,  but 
what  was  it?  It  was  of  no  use  to  point  out  the  evil  unless  he  could  show 
a  remedy  for  it.  He  thought  upon  it  by  night  and  by  day,  and  at  last, 
after  looking  for  it  three  years,  one  night  in  the  spring  of  1843,  as  he  lay 
in  his  bed  revolving  once  more  his  problem,  it  dawned  upon  him  like  an 
inspiration,  "Redeem  it  with  a  bond  bearing  interest."  He  turned  it  to 
and  fro  for  a  moment  and  exclaimed,  in  the  very  words  of  the  old  philoso- 
pher, "I  have  found  it!" 

It  was  written  and  submitted  to  Horace  Greeley,  who, 
Mrs.  Putnam  remarks,  was  "ever  prompt  to  consider  any 
proposition  for  bettering  the  condition  of  mankind."  Mr. 
Greeley  took  it  to  a  printer  and  it  appeared  as  a  pamphlet 
entitled;— "Usury:  The  Evil  and  the  Remedy." 

The  interchangeable  bond  and  money  proposition  was 
stated  as  follows: 

For  the  purpose  I  have  before  mentioned  (to  supply  the  people  with  a 
good  and  sound  currency),  the  United  States  should  establish  an  institu- 
tion, which  I  shall  call  a  Safety  Fund.  I  give  it  this  name  because  I  think 
it  will  be  the  means  of  securing  to  the  producers  a  fair  remuneration  for 
their  productions.  It  will  save  us  from  the  power  of  any  foreign  nation 
over  our  international  improvements,  or  anything  else  of  great  importance. 
It  will  enable  the  nation — as  far  as  man  can  have  such  control — to  decide 
its  own  destiny.  Therefore  it  will  be  a  "National  Safety  Fund." 

In  order  to  explain  the  nature  of  this  Safety  Fund,  I  will  here  write 
out,  in  full,  two  bills,  one  for  a  circulating  medium,  the  other  for  a  Treasury 
Note.  By  reading  these  the  system  may  be  almost  entirely  understood. 
Should  such  an  institution  be  established,  the  bills  might  be  more  brief, 
as  the  laws  on  the  subject  would  be  known,  and  it  would  be  unnecessary 
to  have  as  much  expressed  as  in  the  following. 

(CIRCULATING  MEDIUM  OR  SAFETY  FUND  NOTE) 
The  United  States  promise  to  pay  to  A.  B.,  or  bearer,  at  their  Safety 

Fund,  in  the  City  of. ,  One  Hundred  Dollars,  in  a 

Treasury  Note,  bearing  interest  at  the  rate  of  two  per  cent,  per  annum, 
payable  half-yearly,  in  gold  or  silver  coin;  and  until  such  payment  is  made 
this  note  shall  be  a  legal  tender  for  debts,  the  same  as  gold  or  silver  coins 
are  now  a  tender. 


""Labor  and  Capital,"  by  Edward  Kellogg,  John  W.  Lovell  &  Company, 


New  York,  1883.     Paper. 


(TREASURY  NOTE) 

One  year  from  the  first  day  of  May  next,  or  any  time  thereafter,  the 

United  States  promise  to  pay  to  A.  B.,  or  bearer,  in  the  City  of. 

One  Hundred  Dollars  in  Safety  Fund  Notes;  and  until  such  payment  is 
made,  to  pay  interest  thereon  half-yearly  on  the  first  days  of  May  and 
November,  at  the  rate  of  two  per  cent  per  annum  in  gold  or  silver. 

It  will  be  perceived  that  the  note  intended  as  a  circulating  medium 
is  made  a  legal  tender  for  all  debts,  that  it  is  issued  by  Government,  and 
payable  in  Treasury  Notes.  The  Treasury  Notes  are  to  bear  interest, 
hence  there  can  be  no  money  in  circulation  but  what  the  holder  can  at  any 
time  put  on  interest  where  the  loan  would  be  entirely  safe,  and  the  interest 
payable  half-yearly  in  specie;  so  that  money  can,  at  all  times,  be  loaned 
for  a  certain  income  secured  by  the  nation.  One  year  after  the  first  of 
May  ensuing,  the  holder  can  convert  the  loan  again  into  the  legal  currency 
of  the  country,  so  there  never  can  be  a  surplus  of  money  which  may  not 
be  made  productive. 

It  would  seem  that  this  scheme,  even  though  made  in  all 
seriousness,  and  by  a  man  credited  with  the  purest  purposes, 
would,  inevitably,  and  at  once,  have  been  relegated  to  the 
company  of  the  kitten  chasing  her  own  tail,  or  to  the  com- 
panionship of  the  equally  practical  alchemist  who  should 
propose  to  coin  moonshine.  But  it  was  not.  Mental 
gymnastics  and  jugglery  offer  a  diversion  always  attractive 
to  a  certain  type  of  intellect.  Such  minds  are  often  brilliant 
and  the  number  of  them  always  seems  to  be  large. 

Horace  Greeley's  influential  New  York  Tribune  of 
August  17,  1843,  in  its  leading  article,  using  the  title  of  the 
Kellogg  pamphlet  for  a  caption,  said;  "Such  is  the  title  of  a 
powerful  essay,"  and  the  readers  of  the  Tribune  were  ad- 
vised to  read  it. 

It  is  notable  that  all  of  the  political  movements  which 
have  had  origin  among  those  who  assume  to  be  the  "pro- 
ducing classes," — the  Trades  Unionists,  Knights  of  Labor, 
Farmer's  Alliance,  People's  Party,  etc.  have  regarded  banks 
as  their  natural  enemies,  and  financial  methods  as  a  point  for 
successful  attack  upon  the  bulwarks  of  money  and  privilege. 

Robert  Schilling,  in  the  pamphlet  already  cited,  con- 
denses some  interesting  political  history  into  a  few  pages, 
and  the  document  is,  substantially,  official. 

His  history  of  the  Labor  Movement,  which  developed 
after  the  Civil  War,  is  valuable.  He  shows  that  it  originated 
with  the  Labor  Unions  in  1868.  In  1872  an  Independent 
Labor  National  Convention  was  held  in  Indianapolis,  which 
placed  Judge  David  Davis  of  Illinois,  and  Joel  Parker  of 


New  Jersey,  in  nomination  for  President  and  Vice  President, 
but  both  of  them  declined  to  run,  after  the  other  tickets 
had  been  nominated.  Their  failure  to  stand  for  election 
was  attributed  to  fear  that  the  opportunity  for  success  was 
small. 

In  the  platform  adopted  by  this  convention  the  financial 
scheme  of  Edward  Kellogg  first  came  to  the  surface  as  a 
national  political  issue. 

In  March  1873,  at  a  Labor  Meeting  in  Cleveland,  Ohio, 
styling  itself  the  "Industrial  Congress  of  the  United  States," 
a  long  declaration  of  principles  was  adopted,  and  among 
them  was  a  practical  reaffirmation  of  the  plank  in  the 
Indianapolis  platform,  as  follows: 

The  establishing  by  the  Government  of  a  just  standard  of  distribution 
to  labor  and  capital,  by  providing  a  purely  National  circulating  medium, 
based  on  the  faith  and  resources  of  the  Nation,  issued  directly  to  the  people, 
without  the  intervention  of  any  system  of  banking  corporations,  which 
money  shall  be  a  legal  tender  in  payment  of  all  debts,  public  and  private, 
and  interchangeable  at  the  option  of  the  holder  for  registered  Government 
Bonds,  bearing  a  rate  of  interest  not  to  exceed  3.65  per  cent,  subject  to 
future  legislation  by  Congress. 

Mr.  Schilling  explains  that,  by  reason  of  his  own  advance 
in  companionship 'with  the  several  forward  steps  of  these 
movements,  this  declaration  became  that  of  the  Knights  of 
Labor,  in  1878.  Meanwhile  the  idea  had  spread  among  the 
farmers'  organizations,  so  that  when  Peter  Cooper  became 
the  first  Greenback  candidate  for  President,  in  1876,  the 
doctrine  had  pretty  well  permeated  the  whole  political 
atmosphere  of  opposition  to  the  Republican  policy  of  specie 
resumption,  and  as  subsequent  events  proved,  this  oppo- 
sition was  widespread. 


The  Greenback  Issue 


CHAPTER  Two. 


AFTER  the  Civil  War  the  united  strength  with  which 
the  North  had  supported  the  Republican  Party 
during  that  struggle  began  to  sway  under  pressure 
of  the  new  conditions  imposed  by  peace.  Most 
acute  among  new  questions  was  that  raised  by  the  decision 
of  the  Supreme  Court,  in  December  1869,  which  declared 
unconstitutional  the  Act  of  Congress,  of  1862,  creating  the 
paper  note  currency  commonly  called  "greenbacks,"  and 
making  them  a  "legal  tender,"  so  far  as  it  applied  to  debts 
contracted  before  the  passage  of  the  Act.  Coming  at  a  time 
when  prices  were  inflated  this  decision  aroused  widespread 
discussion  and  no  little  actual  alarm,  lest  what  was  popularly 
declared  a  virtual  repudiation  of  the  Government's  notes 
might  work  immediate  and  serious  results  upon  our  National 
finances,  credit,  commerce,  and  industries.  Much  sentiment 
was  invoked  in  behalf  of  the  greenback  which,  it  was  asserted 
had  been  "good  enough  to  pay  our  brave  boys  in  the  field" 
but  was  thus  discredited  by  one  of  the  great  co-ordinate 
branches  of  the  Government. 

This  situation  was  so  modified  by  the  subsequent  action 
of  Congress  and  the  President,  that  the  Court  reversed 
itself  by  a  bare  majority  vote,  and  the  legal  tender 
quality  of  the  greenback  was  fully  upheld.  Opponents 
of  the  administration  at  the  time  vigorously  denounced, 
as  purely  partisan  politics,  the  changes  in  the  Court, 
through  which,  it  was  asserted,  this  reversal  of  opinion  was 
secured.  This  charge  was  as  warmly  denied  by  the  party 
friends  of  the  President.  But  the  currency  question  had 

10 


been  created  and  with  it  there  arose  great  discussion  and 
controversy  as  to  what  should  be  the  future  financial  policy 
of  the  Government. 

By  1872  this  question,  and  others  growing  out  of  the  war, 
led  to  the  nomination  of  Horace  Greeley  for  the  presidency 
by  a  coalition  of  "Liberal"  Republicans  and  Democrats, 
and  the  "Labor  Reform"  National  Party,  already  referred 
to,  also  appeared  in  the  field  and  nominated  David  Davis  of 
Illinois,  as  its  presidential  candidate.  Such  prominent 
fathers  of  the  Republican  Party  as  Wendell  Phillips,  of 
Massachusetts;  Gen.  John  M.  Palmer,  of  Illinois;  B.  Gratz 
Brown,  of  Missouri,  and  Horace  Greeley,  of  New  York, 
received  votes  for  President  in  the  Labor  Reform  Convention. 
Davis  declined  to  run  but  the  platform  for  the  first  time  in 
National  politics,  raised  questions  which  were  to  appear  and 
reappear  in  many  succeeding  campaigns.  A  new  National 
Prohibition  Party  also  entered  the  lists  at  this  time,  and  the 
"Straight-Out"  Democrats  nominated  Charles  O'Connor 
and  repudiated  the  Greeley  hybrids. 

The  supporters  of  Greeley  declared  for  "a  speedy  return 
of  specie  payment."  The  Republicans  did  the  same,  a  little 
less  distinctly.  In  the  Labor  Reform  Platform  for  the  first 
time  was  put  forward  the  doctrine  which  later  became  the 
backbone  of  the  Greenback  Political  Theory.  It  was  the 
proposition  of  Edward  Kellogg,  with  "improvements." 
This  *platform  contained  the  following  declarations: 

Resolved,  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  Government  to  establish  a  just 
standard  of  distribution  of  capital  and  labor  by  providing  a  purely  National 
circulating  medium,  based  on  the  faith  and  resources  of  the  Nation,  issued 
directly  to  the  people  without  the  intervention  of  any  system  of  banking 
corporations,  which  money  shall  be  legal  tender  in  the  payment  of  all  debts 
public,  and  private,  and  interchangeable  at  the  option  of  the  holder  for 
Government  Bonds  bearing  a  rate  of  interest  not  to  exceed  3.65  per  cent, 
subject  to  future  legislation  by  Congress. 

That  the  National  Debt  should  be  paid  in  good  faith,  according  to  the 
original  contract,  at  the  earliest  option  of  the  Government,  without  mort- 
gaging the  property  of  the  people  or  the  future  exigencies  of  labor,  to  enrich 
a  few  capitalists  at  home  and  abroad. 

That  justice  demands  that  the  burdens  of  Government  should  be  so 
adjusted  as  to  bear  equally  on  all  classes,  and  that  the  exemption  from 
taxation  of  Government  bonds  bearing  extravagant  rates  of  interest  is  a 
violation  of  all  just  principles  of  revenue  laws. 

It  is  notable  that  this  platform  also  contains  the  first 
proposal  of  federal  control  of  corporations,  upon  which 
subject  it  says: 

*See  Appendix,  No.  2. 

11 


That  it  is  the  duty  of  the  Government  to  exercise  its  power  over  rail- 
roads and  telegraph  corporations,  that  they  shall  not  in  any  case  be  pri- 
vileged to  exact  such  rates  of  freight,  transportation  or  charges,  by  what- 
ever name,  as  may  bear  unduly  or  unequally  upon  producer  or  consumer. 

It  is  significant  that  David  Davis,  who  was  the  presi- 
dential nominee  on  this  platform,  though  he  did  not  run, 
was,  at  the  time  of  this  nomination,  upon  the  supreme 
bench,  an  appointee  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  He  afterwards 
became  a  United  States  senator  from  Illinois,  elected  as  an 
"Independent,"  in  1877,  just  in  the  height  of  the  Greenback 
Movement,  the  members  of  that  party  in  the  Illinois  legis- 
lature aiding  in  his  election. 

General  Grant  was  re-elected  President  in  1872,  by  a  clear 
majority  of  all  the  votes  cast  in  the  Nation.  From  that  time 
until  McKinley  was  elected,  in  1896,  the  Republican  Party 
never  again  had  a  popular  majority,  but  only  a  plurality. 
Singularly  enough  it  was  a  financial  issue  which  decimated 
its  ranks  and  it  was  a  financial  issue  which,  with  the  im- 
portant aid  of  the  Gold  Democrats  of  1896,  restored  it  to 
majority  supremacy. 

The  ten  years  following  1872  saw  much  political  excite- 
ment and  many  changes.  In  February  1873  Congress  passed 
the  law  demonitizing  silver,  an  act  which  became  politically 
familiar  as  "the  crime  of  73." 

In  October  1873  began  a  disastrous  financial  panic  which 
caused  an  unexampled  business  depression,  lasting,  with 
gradually  diminishing  force,  until  1881.  The  first  shock  of 
this  financial  crash  came  with  the  failure  of  Jay  Cooke  &  Co., 
in  the  last  days  of  September.  It  was  thought,  at  the  time, 
and  currently  expressed  in  the  press,  that  the  great  fires  of 
1871  and  1872,  in  Chicago  and  Boston,  had  a  depressing 
effect  upon  the  business  of  the  entire  country.  These  cala- 
maties  may  have  played  their  part  in  connection  with  the 
general  shrinkage,  attributed  on  the  one  hand,  to  previous 
inflation  of  values  and  speculation  following  in  the  train  of 
war;  on  the  other,  to  the  contraction  of  the  currency,  and 
the  fixing,  by  act  of  January  1875,  of  a  definite  date  for 
"forced  resumption"  of  specie  payment,  which  had  been 
suspended  under  plea  of  war  necessity.  It  is  interesting  in 
this  connection,  however,  to  remember  that  the  more  recent 
calamity,  the  San  Francisco  earthquake  of  1906,  scarcely  made 
a  ripple  upon  the  finances  of  the  country.  The  "Banker's 
Panic"  of  1907  was  in  no  proper  sense  comparable,  however, 
with  such  financial  cataclysms  as  those  of  1873  and  1893. 

12 


The  financial  depression  of  1873,  swept  many  business 
men  to  ruin,  and  in  the  search  for  causes  and  remedies  the 
financial  field  was  most  prolific. 

In  1875  upon  the  assembling  of  Congress,  President 
Grant  devoted  considerable  attention  to  the  currency 
question,  and  his  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  Mr.  Bristow, 
gave  great  space  to  it  in  his  annual  report,  from  which  the 
following  extract  is  taken: 

The  disastrous  disturbances  have  been  brought  about  in  our  country 
by  overloading,  over  credit  and  excessive  enterprise  of  a  speculative 
character,  stimulated  by  too  great  abundance  of  promises  to  pay,  existing 
in  the  form  of  currency  not  based  upon,  or  convertible  into,  the  only  actual 
money  in  the  world,  and  of  the  Constitution,  gold  and  silver. 

On  Washington's  Birthday,  1876,  the  Indiana  State 
Republican  Convention  declared  for  the  repeal  of  the  re- 
sumption act.  In  the  presidential  election  following,  the 
Independent  National  (Greenback)  Party  came  into  being 
and  ran  Peter  Cooper,  of  New  York,  for  President,  with 
Samuel  F.  Gary,  of  Ohio,  for  Vice  President,  and  in  the 
ensuing  Congress,  this  party  is  credited  with  fourteen 
members  of  the  lower  house. 

Their  platform  demanded  "the  unconditional  repeal"  of 
the  resumption  act  of  1875,  to  "stop  the  suicidal  and  de- 
structive policy  of  contraction."  It  advocated  the  3.65 
interconvertible  bond,  "full  legal  tender"  privilege  for 
treasury  notes,  and  the  suppression  of  National  Bank 
currency.  One  resolution  suggests  even  a  lower  rate  of 
interest,  as  follows: 

We  most  earnestly  protest  against  any  further  issue  of  gold  bonds 
for  sale  in  foreign  markets,  by  which  we  would  be  made  for  a  long  period 
"hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water"  to  foreigners,  especially  as  the 
American  people  would  gladly  and  promptly  take  at  par  all  bonds  the 
Government  may  need  to  sell,  providing  they  are  made  payable  at  the 
option  of  the  holder,  and  bearing  interest  at  3.65  per  cent  per  annum,  or 
even  a  lower  rate. 

The  Republican  Platform  of  1876  was  oracular  on  the 
subject  of  finance,  as  the  following  declaration  shows: 

In  the  first  act  of  Congress  signed  by  President  Grant  the  National 
Government  assumed  to  remove  any  doubts  of  its  purpose  to  discharge 
all  just  obligations  to  the  public  creditors,  and  "solemnly  pledged  its  faith 
to  make  provisions,  at  the  earliest  practicable  period,  for  the  redemption 
of  the  United  States  notes  in  coin."  Commercial  prosperity,  public  morals, 
and  the  National  credit  demand  that  this  promise  be  fulfilled  by  a  con- 
tinuous and  steady  progress  to  specie  payment. 

13 


By  1880  the  Republicans  were  boasting  of  restoring  "our 
paper  currency  from  38  per  cent  to  the  par  of  gold,"  and  the 
Greenback  Party,  with  Gen.  James  B.  Weaver  of  Iowa,  a 
former  Republican,  as  its  presidential  candidate,  demanded 
the  issue  of  all  paper  currency  by  the  Government  alone  and 
that  "the  unlimited  coinage  of  silver,  as  well  as  gold"  be 
established  by  law,  and  demanded  "a  Government  of  the 
People,  by  the  People,  and  for  the  People,  instead  of  a  Govern- 
ment of  the  Bondholder,  by  the  Bondholder,  and  for  the 
Bondholder."  This  was  the  first  National  declaration  in 
favor  of  what  later,  in  the  campaign  of  1896,  became  known 
as  "free  silver." 

This  year  saw  the  high  water  mark  of  strength  for  a 
national  Greenback  ticket,  General  Weaver  receiving 
308,578  votes  in  a  total  of  9,218,251.  But  both  of  the  old 
parties  had  much  internal  disaffection  and  politicians  in 
/-"both  had  become  greatly  alarmed  and  has  vied  with  one 
another  to  confuse  and  demoralize  the  new  party  by  holding 
out  temptations  in  the  way  of  local  fusion.  This  was 
actually  carried  to  the  extent,  in  some  of  the  states,  of  partial 
fusions  on  the  Electoral  Ticket.  In  Maine  such  a  fusion 
was  made  up  with  three  Democrats  and  four  Greenbackers, 
and  as  a  "Straight"  Greenback  Ticket  was  also  in  the  field, 
the  Greenback  strength  was  thus  cleverly  divided. 

As  a  result  of  this  campaign  there  were  nine  members 
of  the  House  of  Representatives  credited  to  the  "Nationals", 
but  this  gain  was  short  lived,  as  the  next  House  contained 
but  two  "Nationals"  and  four  "Independents." 

"American  Politics,"  by  Thos.  V.  Cooper,  says  that 
"In  State  Elections  up  to  as  late  as  1880  this  Greenback 
element  was  a  most  important  factor."  "Farmer"  Allen  in 
Ohio,  "Blue  Jeans"  Williams  in  Indiana,  and  Solon  Chase 
and  "them  steers,"  in  Maine,  became  figures  of  National 
importance,  while  Gen.  Benj.  F.  Butler,  a  Republican 
Congressman,  and  several  times  nominated  by  the  Repub- 
licans for  Governor,  so  bedeviled  the  politics  of  Massachusetts 
as  to  land  himself  in  the  gubernatorial  chair  shortly  after 
the  Greenback  wave  had  subsided,  in  1882,  through  the 
capture  of  the  Democratic  Party  and  its  State  machinery. 
Cooper  says  truly,  however,  that  "As  a  party,  the  Green- 
backers,  standing  alone,  never  carried  either  a  State  or  a 
Congressional  District.  Their  local  successes  were  due  to 
alliances  with  one  or  the  other  of  the  great  parties." 

14 


This  statement  fairly  epitomizes  the  history  of  a  really 
large  and,  for  a  time,  menacing  National  Movement  and  one 
responsible  for  giving  the  Republican  Party  its  first  serious 
alarms  after  the  ten  years  of  uninterrupted  party  power 
and  political  security  which  followed  the  first  election  of 
Lincoln.  It  will  serve  as  a  historical  background  for  the 
account  which  follows,  of  Greenback  politics  in  Wisconsin, 
which  also,  explains  the  prominence  of  Wisconsin  Green- 
backers  in,  and  their  close  relations  to,  the  National  Green- 
back Movement. 

It  may  be  said,  with  truth,  that  the  literature  of  Green- 
backism  developed  in  Wisconsin,  was  among  the  best 
written  and  ablest  of  the  country.  It  is,  therefore,  typical. 


15 


The  Wisconsin  Greenback  Movement 


CHAPTER  THREE. 


AS  early  as  the  last  half  of  1875  there  was  noticeable 
discussion  of  the  currency  question,  in  Wisconsin, 
in  the  newspapers  and  elsewhere,  but  prior  to  Jan- 
uary 1876  there  seems  to  have  been  no  concen- 
trated movement  for  a  party  organization  to  express  Green- 
back sentiment. 

It  was  suggested  in  the  previous  chapter  that  the  Green- 
back Movement  began  with  the  nomination  of  David  Davis 
for  President,  in  1872.  Many  of  the  men  early  active  in  the 
movement  had  been  known,  years  before,  as  anti-slavery 
prophets,  and  later,  as  prominent  Republicans.  David 
Davis  had  been  a  Delegate-at-Large  to  the  Convention  that 
nominated  Abraham  Lincoln  in  1860.  He  had  been  ap- 
pointed, by  Lincoln,  a  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court,  and 
was  named  as  one  of  the  executers  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  will. 
Wendell  Phillips  had  been  one  of  the  most  eloquent  of  the 
Abolitionists,  and  George  W.  Julian  had  been  in  at  the  birth 
of  the  Free  Soil  Party,  one  of  the  early  progenitors  of  the 
Republican  Party,  and  throughout  the  war  he  had  been  one 
of  the  foremost  Republicans  in  the  National  House  of 
Representatives,  and  was  known  as  "the  father  of  the 
Homestead  Act." 

Among  the  "Liberal  Republicans"  who  nominated 
Greeley,  in  1872,  we  find  such  familiar  names  as  Carl  Schurz; 
Col.  A.  K.  McClure,  editor  of  the  Philadelphia  Times,  and 
ex.-Gov.  Andrew  G.  Curtin,  the  famous  war  Governor,  of 
Pennsylvania;  Charles  Francis  Adams  of  Massachusetts; 
Reuben  E.  Fenton  of  New  York;  Lyman  Trumbull  of 
Illinois,  and  many  other  men  of  great  ability  and  recognized 

16 


prominence  in  the  earlier  annals  of  the  Republican  Party. 
Schurz,  Fenton  and  Trumbull  all  served  in  United  States 
Senate  as  Republicans. 

Wisconsin  reflected  this  prevailing  spirit  of  unrest  and 
criticism  within  the  Republican  ranks  and  Greeley  received 
more  votes  in  this  State,  by  about  3,000,  than  Horatio 
Seymour,  as  the  Democratic  candidate,  had  received  four 
years  earlier. 

It  was  this  new  disposition  to  break  over  party  traces 
that  gave  especial  anxiety  to  Republican  leaders,  every- 
where, throughout  the  entire  country. 

In  Wisconsin,  one  of  the  first  important  men  of  well- 
known  Republican  affiliations  to  speak  in  dissent  of  the 
Republican  policy  of  finance,  was  Edward  P.  Allis.  As 
early  as  November  27th,  1875,  the  Milwaukee  Sentinel 
published  a  communication  from  Mr.  Allis,  which  was  as 
follows : 

In  your  very  good  and  modest  "Thanksgiving"  article  in  this  morn- 
ing's paper  you  have  mentioned  two  things  that  I  think  were  referred  to 
upon  general  principles,  and  should  not  have  particular  application  to  this 
case.  You  speak  of  our  having  reduced  the  National  Debt  "in  spite  of 
reduced  taxation  and  revenue,"  as  a  cause  of  thanks,  and  then  speak  of 
the  human  beings  who  are  in  cold  and  want,  and  whose  only  chance  for 
thanks  will  come  from  charity. 

It  is  certainly  a  good  thing,  in  the  abstract,  to  reduce  a  debt;  and  I 
think  you  have  mentioned  it  in  that  way,  and  that,  after  consideration 
of  its  particular  application  in  this  case,  you  will  agree  with  me,  that  the 
good  may  be  not  an  unalloyed  one. 

This  fact  stands  out  glaringly  in  our  National  history.  The  War  of 
the  Rebellion  came  and  found  us  comparatively  out  of  debt,  but  financially 
weak.  The  war  ended  and  found  us  overwhelmed  with  debt,  but  finan- 
cially strong.  We  entered  the  contest  a  debtless  pigmy,  and  emerged  an 
indebted  giant. 

We  entered  it  with  but  moderate  or  negative  and  prosperity  and 
National  strength,  and  emerged  with  almost  boundless  prosperity  and 
power.  This  prosperity  continued  after  the  war,  but  with  a  declining 
tendency,  until  to-day  we  find  the  only  thing  to  be  thankful  for,  "that  we 
have  reduced  the  National  Debt,"  and  couple  that  cause  of  thanksgiving 
with  the  appeal  for  charity  to  men  with  strong  arms  and  willing  hearts, — 
men  who  desire  and  ought  to  have  the  opportunity  to  owe  their  Thanks- 
giving Dinner  to  the  goodness  of  God,  rather  than  to  the  charity  of  men. 
If  we  carefully  investigate  the  facts,  we  shall  find  that  we  have  everything 
to  be  thankful  for,  so  far  as  the  fruits  of  the  earth  can  make  it  so,  but  that 
our  own  acts  are  turning  a  real  cause  of  thanks  into  a  real  cause  of  com- 
plaint. If  we  had  cited  the  reduction  of  the  National  Debt  as  a  cause  of 
complaint,  and  then  the  necessity  of  charity  as  the  effect,  we  might  have 
been  not  wide  of  the  mark. 

17 


We  are  here  upon  earth  not  alone  as  the  conservators  of  the  present, 
but  also  as  directors  of  the  future.  We  make  laws  and  do  deeds  that 
bind  and  affect  all  future  time.  When  the  Rebellion  came,  there  came 
with  it  the  necessity  to  suppress  it,  not  for  ourselves  alone,  but  for  future 
ages,  without  limit,  as  we  hope.  Here  was  a  work  to  do  for  the  almost 
limitless  future,  and  we  sprang  to  it  with  a  zeal  and  energy  that  gave 
assurance  of  our  appreciation  of  the  responsibility;  and  well  did  we  perform 
the  task. 

To  do  this  future  work  with  present  means — with  our  money — was 
an  impossibility,  and  the  money  itself  so  taught  us.  When  the  first  shot 
struck  Sumter,  Gold  started  for  the  rear,  and  when  the  rebel  shouts  were 
ringing  triumphantly  through  the  land,  Gold  was  out  of  sight  and  hearing 
— that  "God-anointed  King!" 

It  was  only  when  we  realized  that  it  was  a  war  for  the  future,  and 
must  be  fought  with  the  money  of  the  future,  and  that  the  gold  was  still 
in  our  mountains  that  was  to  fight  it,  that  we  provided  the  Greenback  and 
its  consort  the  Bond,  which  stood  by  us  like  brothers  to  the  successful  end. 
We  were  all  laborers  for  the  distant  future,  and  they  paid  us  for  our  labors, 
during  that  five  years,  three  thousand  millions  of  dollars,  well  earned 
and  ungrudgingly  paid.  During  the  war  we  prospered,  in  spite  of  the 
waste  and  devastation  of  war,  because  we  were  all  employed  in  a  necessary 
and  finally  successful  work  for  a  willing  and  able  paymaster.  After  the 
war  we  prospered  and  soon  made  good  to  a  large  extent  the  waste  of  the 
war,  but  this  after  prosperity  has  been  a  declining  one,  and  we  are  now 
almost,  if  not  quite,  without  cause  for  thanks  for  prosperity.  During 
these  ten  years  of  declining  prosperity  we  have,  as  you  say,  steadily  reduced 
the  public  debt.  Is  it  not  possible  that  you  have  reversed  the  light  in 
which  we  should  view  this?  Is  it  not  open  to  question  whether  we  are 
not  paying  a  debt  we  do  not  owe?  This  is  a  debt  owed,  we  hope,  by  a 
hundred  generations,  and  is  it  not  a  questionable  cause  of  congratulation 
that  our  Government  is  compelling  one  generation  to  pay  it?  In  ten 
years  we  have  paid  $1,000,000,000,  or  one  third  of  the  principal  of  the  debt. 
Besides  interest  on  the  whole  at  5  or  6  per  cent,  we  have  paid  3M$  per  cent 
per  annum  of  the  principal.  The  whole  increase  of  wealth  in  our  country 
from  all  sources,  and  through  a  series  of  prosperous  years,  will  not  exceed 
from  2  to  3  per  cent,  per  annum.  What  the  increase  has  been  during  the 
last  two  years  is  probably  less  than  nothing,  yet  still  comes  the  monthly 
announcement  of  the  public  debt  reduced  so  much.  Who  can  tell  how 
potent  a  cause  this  is  if  for  the  present  depression?  The  thousands  of  idle 
men  who,  you  say  truly,  are  to-day  depending  upon  charity  for  a  Thanks- 
giving Dinner,  are  not  without  substantial  reason  in  thinking  that  the 
monthly  announcement  of  reduction  of  the  public  debt,  should  be  charac- 
terized as  official  stupidity,  instead  of  official  efficiency. 

Yours  truly, 
Nov.  25,  1875.  Edward  P.  Allis. 

Dr.  O.  W.  Wight,  then  State  Geologist,  also  declared, 
publicly,  for  greenbacks,  in  November  1875. 

Notwithstanding  the  uneasiness  with  which  the  politi- 
cians were  watching  and   measuring  the  importance  of  a 
sentiment   now   rapidly   crystalizing   into   a   wide   political 
protest,  the  newspapers  were  generally  indifferent,  neglect- 
is 


ful,  or  derisive  of  the  new  movement,  and  of  those  engaged 
in  it.  Their  position  may  be  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  at 
the  first  conference,  or  advisory  committee  meeting,  of  the 
Wisconsin  leaders  of  the  Greenback  Movement,  Mr.  J.  T. 
Gilbert,  of  Milwaukee,  scored  the  newspapers,  quite  roundly, 
for  shabby  treatment.  In  rejoinder  the  Milwaukee  Com- 
mercial Times  accused  Mr.  Gilbert  of  being  too  "sweeping" 
in  his  complaints.  It  said, 

The  Commercial  Times  looks  upon  the  Greenback  sophistries  of 
such  influential  and  well  meaning  citizens  as  Mr.  Gilbert,  Mr.  Allis,  *Mr. 
Nazro  and  others,  with  as  much  distrust  and  apprehension  as  any  journal 
in  the  land.  Yet  the  Commercial  Times  has  been  careful  to  place  all  the 
public  utterances  of  these  gentlemen  freely  and  fairly  before  the  public, 
and  it  has  also  offered  them  individually  the  free  use  of  its  columns. 

Other  daily  newspapers  very  generally  ignored  the 
movement.  The  Commercial  Times  printed  Mr.  Allis's 
speech  in  full,  and  the  editorial  already  quoted  from,  nearly 
a  column  in  length,  took  care  to  explain  the  newspaper's 
entire  dissent  from  Mr.  Allis's  doctrine.  It  said: 

We  therefore,  present  our  readers  with  the  views  of  Mr.  Allis,  while 
we  do  not  agree  with  them,  as  a  matter  of  news  and  an  act  of  justice  to 
one  of  Milwaukee's  most  estimable  citizens. 

Early  in  January  1876,  there  were  steps  taken  to  get 
Wisconsin  greenback  leaders  together  and  map  out  an  active 
program,  and  on  January  18th,  the  meeting  above  referred 
to,  was  held  in  Madison. 

The  Milwaukee  Commercial  Times  said,  the  next  day, 
that  it  was  "called  a  State  Greenback  Convention."  The 
Sentinel  of  the  19th  said:  "There  were  forty  or  fifty  persons 
present."  W.  W.  Field,  secretary  of  the  State  Agricultural 
Society  of  Madison,  called  the  meeting  to  order,  read  a 
short  adress,  and  was  chosen  Chairman,  and  S.  D.  ("Pump") 
Carpenter,  a  well  known  Madison  editor,  was  made  Sec- 
retary. 

William  Orledge  of  Kenosha,  read  a  call  for  a  National 
Greenback  Convention  to  meet  at  Indianapolis,  on  the  17th 
of  May.  He  said  the  "old  parties  had  outlived  their  use- 
fulness." 

The  Commercial  Times  report  says:  "Mr.  E.  P.  Allis 
was  called  for,  and  delivered  an  address  which  was  highly 
commended."  He  took  occasion  to  say,  at  the  outset,  that 


*John  Nazro,  earlier  a  prominent  hardware  merchant  of  Milwaukee. 

19 


he  was  not  aware  that  the  meeting  was  called  to  organize  a 
new  party  and  declined  to  express  himself  on  that  subject. 
Other  speeches  were  made  by  Judge  Harlow  S.  Orton,  an 
hitherto  prominent  Democrat,  (who  announced  that  he 
would  support  a  Republican  for  President  rather  than  a  Hard 
Money  Democrat),  J.  T.  Gilbert,  G.  W.  King  of  Clark 
county,  M.  Sellers  of  Fort  Howard,  "Pump"  Carpenter, 
Herman  Nabor  of  Shawano,  and  others.  Ex.  Gov.  Dewey, 
Wisconsin's  first  Governor,  did  not  respond  to  a  call  to  speak 
except  to  announce  himself  as  a  greenback  man.  The  report 
calls  it  a  gathering  of  "a  number  of  the  most  prominent  men 
of  Wisconsin",  and  the  paper  says  editorially,  that;  "Mr. 
E.  P.  Allis  of  this  city  was  the  leading  mind,"  among  them. 
Judge  Orton  pronounced  Mr.  Allis's  address  the  "most 
perfect  presentation  of  the  question  he  had  ever  listened  to." 

The  result  of  this  "Convention"  or  conference  was  the 
passage  of  a  set  of  resolutions  presented  by  Judge  Orton, 
and  the  appointment  of  a  State  Committee  to  call  a  State 
Convention,  if  thought  proper,  and  to  organize  a  new  party 
if  neither  of  the  existing  parties  should  adopt  a  Greenback 
plank.  The  Resolutions  were  as  follows: 

Resolved,  That  gold  and  silver  are  too  inconvenient  and  quite  in- 
sufficient to  be  used  in  this  country  as  a  circulating  medium,  and  that  a 
paper  circulating  medium  in  lieu  thereof  as  money,  is  absolutely  indespen- 
sable. 

Resolved,  That  the  National  Government  should  issue  and  furnish 
such  paper  circulation,  interconvertible  into  National  Bonds,  at  long  time 
and  low  interest,  and  to  be  of  such  volume  as  is  from  time  to  time 
required  by  the  exigencies  of  commercial  exchange,  which  should  supersede 
all  other  paper  circulation  as  money  and  be  receivable  for  all  public  dues. 

Resolved,  that  a  forced  contraction  of  currency,  with  a  view  to  the 
redemption  of  Government  paper  with  gold  or  silver,  will  greatly  injure, 
if  not  utterly  destroy,  all  the  diversified  interests  of  the  country,  except 
those  of  bankers,  brokers  and  creditors. 

Resolved,  that  the  present  volume  of  the  currency  is  not  in  excess  of 
the  necessities  of  the  times,  and  that  it  shall  be  of  such  character  that  its 
future  expansion  or  contraction  shall  depend  upon  the  natural  course  of 
business  and  the  common  laws  of  trade. 

Resolved,  that  the  true  policy  is  to  encourage  the  development  of  our 
National  resources,  and  equal  protection  to  all  branches  of  business  and 
productive  industry  and  the  administration  of  the  Government  with 
honesty  and  economy,  and  in  this  way  sustain  the  National  credit,  and 
make  it  at  least  equal  at  all  times  to  gold  and  silver. 

So  far  as  I  have  discovered,  after  dilligent  search  of  the 
record,  this  is  the  first  set  of  Greenback  Resolutions  adopted, 
by  a  representative  State  meeting,  in  Wisconsin. 

20 


The  committee  named  was  as  follows,  one  from  each  Con- 
gressional District: 

At  Large:  William  Orledge  of  Kenosha, 

First  District:          George  Easterly,  of  Whitewater, 

Second  District:       Judge  Harlow  S.  Orton,  of  Madison, 
Third  District:          G.  W.  Lee,  of  Grant  County, 

Fourth  District:       E.  P.  Allis,  of  Milwaukee, 

Fifth  District:  E.  M.  McGraw,  of  Sheboygan, 

Sixth  District:  Eli  Stilson,  of  Oshkosh, 

Seventh  District:      G.  W.  King,  of  Clark  County, 

Eighth  District:        E.  S.  Miner,  of  Juneau  County. 

It  will  be  of  interest  to  state  that  George  Easterly,  was  a 
prominent  manufacturer  of  agricultural  machinery  at 
Whitewater;  Harlow  S.  Orton,  was  a  prominent  lawyer,  had 
already  been  a  Circuit  Judge  and,  two  years  later,  was 
appointed  a  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court,  where  he  served 
with  credit,  until  his  death,  in  1895;  Edward  P.  Allis,  of 
Milwaukee  was  one  of  the  leading  iron  and  steel  machinery 
manufacturers  of  the  West,  a  college  bred  gentleman;  Eli 
Stilson,  was  a  prosperous  stock  farmer,  who  lived  near 
Oshkosh;  G.  W.  King  was  a  son  of  the  first  Governor  of 
Maine,  a  lumberman,  and  a  man  of  local  prominence  on 
Black  river;  Eliphalet  S.  Miner,  was  a  pioneer  lumberman  of 
Necedah,  an  early  partner  of  Thomas  Weston  and  John  T. 
Kingston,  a  firm  later  succeeded  by  the  Necedah  Lumber  Co.; 
William  Orledge  was  a  farmer  of  local  prominence  in  Kenosha 
county.  Most  of  them  had  been  prominent  as  Republicans. 

Mr.  Allis,  to  whom  leadership  in  the  Greenback  move- 
ment in  Wisconsin  seemed  to  be  accorded,  from  the  outset, 
delivered  an  address  on  this  occasion,  which  was  accepted 
as  the  party  "keynote,"  as  follows: 

Gentlemen: — It  is  with  extreme  diffidence  that  I  address  you.  I  have 
neither  the  ability  nor  the  ambition  to  be  a  leader,  and  only  desire  to  add 
my  voice  and  influence,  feeble  as  it  may  be,  to  what  I  conceive  to  be  a 
most  vital  question. 

The  cause  that  has  brought  us  together  is  no  trifling  or  sectional  one; 
it  underlies  all  civilized  progress,  and  is  at  this  moment  affecting  for  good 
or  ill  the  whole  civilized  world. 

To  the  solution  of  this  question,  however,  we  should  lay  no  claim  to  a 
world  wide  philanthropy;  we  should  acknowledge  the  axiom  that  charity 
begins  at  home,  and  put  our  own  house  in  order;  we  meet  as  Americans, 
to  consider  our  own  conditions  and  best  interests. 

That  something  is  the  matter  needs  no  elucidation  here.  From  a 
season  of  prosperous  advance,  we  entered  upon  a  season  of  decline,  and  are 
now  standing  upon  the  verge  of  individual  and  co-bankruptcy  and  ruin. 
Thousands  of  able  and  willing  men  are  idle,  and  almost  numberless  women 
and  children,  in  all  parts  of  our  land,  are  suffering  for  the  commonest 

21 


necessaries  of  life.  Hundreds  of  business  houses  are  struggling  and  totter- 
ing to  their  fall,  and  hundreds  of  workshops  are  indebted  to  the  busy  spider 
to  cover  their  rusty  journals  from  the  passers'  gaze.  All  advance  seems 
to  have  ceased  in  a  land  whose  motto  and  life  is  progress. 

All  this  and  more  has  come  upon  us.  Why?  Our  bounteous  Creator 
has  not  ceased  to  smile  upon  us  as  of  old.  His  glad  sunshine  and  gushing 
rain-drops  have  bathed  our  land  until  it  has  laughed  with  rustling  crops, 
and  the  farmer's  garner  is  all  too  small  to  hold  the  golden  fruit.  Sweet 
peace  has  rested  within  our  borders,  and  the  sabre  and  musket  are 
>not  seen,  we  go  and  come  where  we  will,  with  none  to  molest,  or  make  us 
afraid.  Our  forests  and  prairies  are  crying  aloud  for  the  sturdy  caress  of 
the  axe  and  the  plow,  and  our  mountains  are  groaning  as  in  labor,  from 
their  precious  burdens.  Wherefore  are  these  things  and  all  these  cries 
in  vain — the  cry  of  the  laborer  for  work,  and  the  work  for  the  laborer? 
Wherefore  do  these  two  wish  to  come  together  and  can  not?  Wherefore 
have  the  trader  and  manufacturer  no  power  to  bring  them  together;  and 
wherefore  does  the  capitalist  fear  to  do  so?  The  answers  to  these  questions, 
gentlemen,  lie  wrapped  up  in  the  subject  we  are  here  to  consider,  and  any 
one  who  from  experience  or  knowledge  can  throw  any  light  upon  it,  owes 
it  to  humanity  and  to  his  country  to  do  so.  As  in  most  vital  questions 
of  policy,  there  is  upon  this  one  a  wide  diversity  of  opinion  and  as  we  are 
bound  to  believe,  all  have  honest  supporters.  From  the  wildest  inflationist 
— so  called — to  the  most  narrow  contractionist  and  hard  money  man, 
there  is  a  wide  range,  but  the  ideas  of  both  are  the  legitimately  begotten 
offspring  of  a  scienece  too  little  studied  and  understood,  and  the  truth  lies 
somewhere  between  them. 

In  order  to  state  my  views  in  a  simple  form,  and  confine  my  few 
remarks  to  them,  I  have  put  my  belief  in  the  shape  of  resolutions,  which 
I  will  endeavor  to  briefly  elucidate,  but  on  which  I  neither  ask  nor  desire 
a  formal  vote: 

WHEREAS,  Gold  is  the  acknowledged  expression  of  value  by  the 
nations  of  the  world,  to  whom  we  are  socially  and  commercially  related; 
and 

WHEREAS,  The  United  States  are  the  largest  producers  of  gold 
among  nations;  therefore, 

Resolved,  That  the  United  States  should  maintain  a  gold  basis. 

WHEREAS,  The  prosperity  and  progress  of  our  country  depend 
almost  wholly  upon  the  amount  and  value  of  its  circulating  medium;  and 

WHEREAS,  The  amount  of  gold  in  the  world  is  entirely  inadequate 
to  the  needs  of  the  world,  for  a  circulating  medium,  therefore, 

Resolved,  That  we  need  a  paper  currency  of  as  large  a  volume  as  can 
be  maintained  equal  to  gold,  and  that  its  conversion  into  gold  must  be 
from  intrinsic  worth,  and  voluntary,  and  not  compulsory. 

Resolved,  That  the  way  to  attain  the  inestimable  benefits  of  a  cir- 
culating medium  equal  to  gold,  and  of  a  volume  adequate  and  adapted  to 
the  needs  of  trade  and  progress,  is  to  have  an  exclusive  Government 
currency  based  on  its  indebtedness,  receivable  for  all  its  dues,  and  inter- 
convertible at  the  will  of  the  holder,  with  its  low  interest  bearing  bonds, 
principal  and  interest  payable  in  gold,  or  its  equivalent. 

In  regard  to  the  first  proposition,  that  we  ought  to  maintain  a  gold 
standard,  I  differ  from  many  so-called  greenback  men,  and  I  fully  appre- 
ciate the  force  of  their  reasoning.  I  am  free  to  say  that  I  think  it  a  grave 

22 


mistake  on  the  part  of  other  nations.  They  are  making  indispenable  to 
themselves  an  article  which  they  do  not  and  cannot  produce,  and  for  a 
supply  of  which  they  must  look  to  us.  They  are  creating  and  maintaining 
an  unlimited  market,  and  at  a  price  far  above  its  intrinsic  worth,  for  one 
of  our  largest  possible  productions.  We  should  be  the  very  last  ones, 
either  by  word  or  act,  to  discourage  this  folly,  but  should  do  all  in  our 
power  to  encourage  and  perpetuate  the  delusion.  We  should  accept  the 
situation  they  force  upon  us  with  the  same  good  grace,  and  with  much  the 
same  ultimate  result  as  did  the  fabled  legal  gentleman,  who  passed  the 
shells  to  the  contestants,  and  himself  swallowed  the  oyster.  Few  of  us 
realize  or  appreciate  the  limitless  wealth  there  is  in  our  mines,  if  the  markets 
of  the  world  are  not  disturbed  in  their  demand  for  the  product.  Our  mining 
schools  are  just  beginning  to  send  out  their  young  men,  clothed  with  all 
the  accumulated  knowledge  of  the  present  day,  and  their  influence  upon 
the  amount  and  cost  of  production  will  be  felt  more  and  more  in  a  geo- 
metrically increasing  ratio  year  by  year.  New  fields  are  being  opened 
almost  every  day,  and  more  capital  and  better  machinery  being  employed. 
The  future  of  our  mineral  productions  is  such,  in  a  commercial  point  of 
view,  that  we  cannot  as  a  Nation,  afford  even  in  seeming  to  discredit  its 
value.  The  other  nations  of  the  earth  will  find  out  the  truth  all  too  soon 
and  the  time  will  come,  as  surely  as  the  sun  continues  to  rise  and  set  upon 
a  progressive  world,  when  we  can  get  all  the  gold  we  want  from  the  accu- 
mulations of  the  earth  much  cheaper  than  its  present  value  as  currency. 
Our  present  duty,  then,  in  a  commercial  point  of  view,  is  clearly  to  main- 
tain, by  all  our  power  and  legislation,  the  extreme  value  and  production  of 
our  mines,  and  to  pour  it  into  the  lap  of  an  eager  world,  to  the  full  extent 
of  our  ability.  Give  it  to  them  in  sheets,  in  bars,  in  ingots  or  in  coin, 
wrought  or  unwrought,  just  as  they  want  to  and  are  able  to  pay  for  it. 

We  have  but  one  thing  to  see  to,  that  they  do  not  in  the  future,  as  in 
the  past,  get  the  advantage  of  us  in  the  exchange.  We  have  heretofore 
been  the  veriest  weaklings  in  their  hands.  They  have  taken  all  we  had 
and  given  us  literally  nothing  in  return.  They  have  persuaded  us  that  we 
better  let  the  coal  and  iron  lie  untouched  in  our  hills,  and  have  generously 
sent  us  theirs.  They  have  persuaded  us  that  we  better  not  destroy  the 
romance  and  beauty  of  our  waterfalls  by  erecting  factories  upon  them, 
that  they  would  weave  and  spin  our  cotton  and  wool.  They  have  taken 
our  gold  and  silver  and  persuaded  us  that  jack-knives,  ribbons  and  wines 
were  an  equivalent.  They  have  done  unto  us,  and  there  is  a  poetic  but 
bitter  justice  in  the  fact,  as  we  did  unto  the  poor  Indian,  giving  beads, 
trinkets  and  whiskey  for  skins,  pelts  and  valuable  lands.  But  this  is  not 
all,  nor  the  worst.  We  have  given  them  something  far  more  valuable 
than  our  iron  and  coal,  or  our  silver  and  gold.  After  getting  everything 
else  we  had  that  they  wanted,  they  have  persuaded  us  to  give  them  our 
name  written  on  a  piece  of  paper;  they  have  got  our  "Rags."  Yes,  gentle- 
men, they  have  got  our  "Rag  Baby,"  and  it  is  sucking  all  the  milk  out  of 
us  clear  across  the  oceans  that  lie  between  us.  They  have  bought  our 
"Rag  Baby,"  and  we  must  buy  it  back  or  die.  We  want  our  rags,  rags  that 
we  want,  and  we  ask  for  nothing  else.  I  say  nothing  else,  for  enough 
for  the  day  is  the  evil  thereof;  but  the  time  may  come  when  we  shall  want 
something  else,  and  that  is  their  rags.  The  day  may  come  when  this 
pendulum  of  National  indebtedness  shall  swing  the  other  way,  when  they 
will  be  sending  us  the  fruits  of  the  sweat  of  their  brows,  to  pay  us  the 
interest  on  their  bonds,  and  when  instead  of  our  being  their  hewers  of  wood 
and  drawers  of  water,  they  will  be  ours. 

23 


My  second  reolution  was: 

WHEREAS,  The  prosperity  and  progress  of  our  country  depends 
almost  wholly  upon  the  value  and  amount  of  its  circulating  medium;  and 

WHEREAS,  The  amount  of  gold  in  the  world  is  entirely  inadequate 
to  the  needs  of  the  country  as  a  circulating  medium;  therefore, 

Resolved,  That  we  need  a  paper  currency  of  as  large  a  volume  as  can 
be  maintained  equal  to  gold,  and  that  its  conversion  into  gold  must  be 
from  intrinsic  worth,  and  voluntary,  and  not  compulsory. 

It  is  a  fact  apparent  to  all,  that  prosperity  and  progress  walk  hand  in 
hand  with  an  abundant  currency.     The  evils  that  arise  in  seasons  of  abun- 
dant currency  are  due  either  to  its  accompanying  instability  and  depre- 
ciation below  an  acknowledged  National  standard  and  consequent  distur- 
bance of  relative  values,  or  to  its  want  of  adaptability  in  volume,  and  of 
ultimate  security.     Its  benefits  are  real  and  immediate,  its  evils  are  an- 
ticipated and  remote.     To  get  rid  of  its  ultimate  evils,  we  have  only  to 
make  its  present  benefit  a  continuous  one.     For  seasons  of  prosperity  under 
an  abundant  currency  we  can  find  examples  all  through  history,  but  need 
only  to  go  to  our  own  War  of  the  Rebellion,  when,  and  succeeding  which, 
an  unexampled  state  of  commercial  prosperity  existed.     I  am  aware  that 
it  is  claimed  that  this  state  of  prosperity  was  an  apparent  and  not  a  real 
one,  that  it  was  caused  by  our  running  into  debt  and  spending  the  money. 
Even  were  this  so,  it  only  confirms  the  position  that  we  were  prosperous 
while  the  currency  was  abundant,  and  the  reverse  when  the  currency  was 
depleted.     I  do  not  think,  however,  that  the  claim  that  we  were  pros- 
pering because  we  were  running  in  debt  and  spending  the  money,  can  be 
maintained.     The  end  attained  by  the  war  was  certainly  a  real  and  lasting 
benefit,   and   worth   all  it  cost.     The  improvements   made  in  railroads, 
buildings  and  machinery,  are  certainly  real  benefits,  and  the  evil  is  that 
we  do  not  or  cannot  use  them.     Our  bonds  are  the  spent  money  of  the  war, 
and  they  are  certainly  not  a  loss,  being  worth  more  than  their  face  in  gold. 
The  running  in  debt  is  not  of  itself  a  necessary  evil,  but  it  is  the  wisdom 
or  folly  of  a  debt  that  determines  its  character.     If  an  individual  borrows 
at  5  per  cent  and  lends  at  6  per  cent,  he  can  stand  it;  but  if  he  borrows  at 
6  and  lends  at  5  he  cannot  stand  it  so  well.     A  debt  is  therefore  measured 
by  wisdom  in  its  creation  and  rate  of  interest,  and  not  by  its  existence  alone. 
No  one  doubts  the  wisdom  of  our  expenditures  for  the  suppression  of  the 
Rebellion,  unless  it  is  the  rebels  themselves,  if  there  are  any  left.  We  pros- 
pered then,  in  spite  of  the  waste  and  loss  of  war,  because  our  whole  people 
were  occupied.     We  were  employed  in  earnest  and  useful  work,  and  had  a 
good  paymaster,  who  had  currency  enough  to  meet  the  wants  of  the  time. 
If  we  prospered  then,  in  spite  of  the  waste  of  war,  how  much  more  ought 
we  to  have  prospered  afterwards,  with  that  waste  ended,  and  aii  this  labor 
turned  into  channels  of  peace  and  progress?     I  contend  that  this  might 
have  been  soon,  that  from  that  day  to  this  there  might  and  ought  to  have 
been  an  increasing  state  of  prosperity  and  progress;  that  all  the  energies 
brought  out,  and  knowledge  acquired  by  the  war   cloud,   ought  to  have 
been  utilized,  and  not  cast  aside  and  trampled  under  foot.     Our  only 
suffering  from  the  war,  aside  from  its  actual  waste  of  life  and  property, 
has  arisen  from  our  want  of  appreciation,  that  it  brought  into  existence 
a  state  of  things  that  could  have  been  advantageously  used,  instead  of 
disastrously,  dis  and   misused.     The  abundent  currency  on  which  that 
prosperity  was  built,  instead  of  being  utilized  and  made  the  basis  of  a  still 
greater  prosperity  and  progress,  has  been  persistently  fought  and  depre- 

24 


dated.  We  have,  by  wrong  legislation,  deprived  it  of  a  part  of  its  value, 
and  then  made  a  bad  matter  still  worse  by  making  less  of  it.  Our  first 
effort  should  have  been  to  make  it  the  equal  of  the  best  currency  on  earth, 
and  then  to  let  the  people  have  all  they  could  use  and  keep  it  at  that  value. 
Forced  or  compulsory  conversion  of  one  circulating  medium  into  another 
should  be  based  on  the  fact  that  the  quantities  of  the  two  were  equal. 
If  there  is  a  preponderance  of  one  over  the  other,  then  a  compulsory  law 
of  exchange  is  a  fraud  upon  its  face,  and  must  lead  to  evil  results.  It  is 
not  possible  to  enact  a  law  contrary  to  the  laws  of  God  and  truth,  and  have 
it  lead  to  other  than  human  disaster.  All  specie  resumption  laws  say 
virtually,  that  two  and  two  shall  be  twenty,  instead  of  four. 

If  I  am  correct,  we  here  in  a  few  words  have  a  solution,  and  a  remedy. 
It  seems  to  me  that  but  few  even  of  the  friends  of  the  inter-convertible 
bond  and  greenback  plan,  fully  realize  its  grandeur  and  anticipate  its 
far-reaching  affects  for  good.  Standing  alone  in  its  majesty,  it  is  almost 
the  summum  bonum  of  human  financial  wisdom.  It  takes  every  man, 
woman  and  child,  who  lives  under  the  protecting  folds  of  our  flag,  the 
indorsers  of  the  currency  that  every  other  man,  woman  and  child,  owns, 
and  holds  every  item  of  property  over  which  the  American  eagle  floats, 
as  a  sacred  pledge  for  its  payment.  It  gives  every  man,  woman  and  child 
who  owns  a  current  note,  a  voice  in  determining  just  how  many,  and  how 
few  of  them  shall  exist. 

The  holy  tie  that  binds  every  true  man  to  his  country,  is  strengthened 
and  supplemented,  and  linked  in  with  the  universal  love  of  gain,  which 
is  the  ground  of  all  progress.  Your  home,  your  business,  your  civilization, 
your  country  are  indissolubly  linked  together,  by  a  combination  of  all 
the  ties  which  influence  human  hearts  and  lives.  Here  strangers  are 
made  acquainted,  and  foes  are  made  friends.  A  blow  struck  at  an  enemy 
wounds  yourself.  If  you  would  escape  an  obligation  to  your  neighbor, 
you  injure  your  own  wife  and  children.  "Tis  here  that  God  and  Mammon 
meet,  and  in  serving  the  one  you  glorify  the  other.  What  is  our  National 
Debt?  It  is  stored  up  service  which  we  have  performed  for  our  children's 
children  for  all  time,  as  we  hope  and  believe.  They,  though  yet  unborn, 
demand  of  us  this  service,  and  we  performed  it  well  and  have  been  richly 
repaid.  Three  thousand  million  of  dollars  they  gave  us  grudgingly  for  this 
service,  and  pledged  us  their  faith  and  labor  for  its  payment,  and  their 
pledge  is  better  today  than  snowy  silver,  or  yellow  gold.  What  are  we 
doing  with  this  their  benefaction?  With  childish  folly  we  first  permitted 
our  shrewd  brothers  across  the  ocean  to  get  it  away  from  us,  and  then  with 
a  generosity  exceeding  a  parent's  love,  we  are  forgiving  them  the  debt.  We 
are  following  the  example  of  the  senile,  who  robs  himself  and  dame  of 
bread,  to  give  his  infant  grandchild  an  unasked  toy.  In  ten  years  we 
have  paid  one-third  of  the  debt;  paid  a  thousand  millions  of  dollars  that 
the  present  generation  did  not  owe,  and  in  doing  so  have  reduced  our- 
selves to  bankruptcy,  beggary,  idleness  and  want.  The  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  monthly  rings  out  the  "reduction  of  the  National  Debt",  think- 
ing, in  his  sheltered  and  innocent  simplicity,  that  he  is  sounding  a  marriage 
peal,  when  alas!  alas!  it  is  a  funeral  dirge.  Shall  we  never  learn  that  a 
financial  and  political  truth  can  no  more  be  falsified  with  impunity  than  a 
natural  one?  I  fear  not  except  through  suffering,  but  hope  the  past  decade 
of  declining  prosperity,  ending  in  the  present  slough  of  commercial  despair 
will  have  been  sufficient. 

This  proposition  is,  I  believe,  almost  a  cure-all  of  these  evils,  and 
that  in  adopting  it,  we  shall  be  building  better  than  we  know. 

25 


1st.     Will  it  make  our  currency  equal  to  gold? 

Take  the  two  forms  of  indebtedness,  a  6  per  cent  bond  and  a  greenback 
and  compare  them.  They  are  both  equally  an  indebtedness  of  the  Nation, 
and  neither  have  any  precedence  of  the  other  in  obligation  or  security 
and  neither  will  any  more  surely  be  paid  than  the  other.  One  of  these,  we 
find,  is  worth  107  cents  on  the  dollar  in  gold,  and  the  other  87  cents.  Here 
is  a  difference  of  20  cents  on  a  dollar  in  their  value,  and  why?  It  is  not 
from  their  quantity,  as  their  combined  amount  is  in  any  case  the  same. 
It  is  clearly,  then,  on  account  of  their  quality,  and  nothing  else.  Now 
suppose  the  Government  should  determine  all  at  once  to  treat  the  green- 
back debtor  the  same  as  the  bond  debtor,  what  would  be  the  effect?  It 
could  not  lower  the  value  of  the  bond,  because  its  value  is  now  fixed  by  its 
quality  alone.  There  can  be  no  escape  from  the  fact  that  it  would  at  once 
raise  the  value  of  the  greenback  to  the  equal  of  the  bond.  We  have  here 
an  absolute  surety  that  conversion  into  an  interest  paying  bond  would 
bring  up  the  value  of  the  greenback  to  that  of  the  bond,  but  we  have  an- 
other proof  and  existing  exemplification  of  it. 

We  have  two  kinds  of  currency,  greenbacks  and  National  Bank  notes, 
and  in  the  hands  of  the  people  they  are  of  equal  value,  because  inter- 
convertible, the  one  into  the  other;  but,  mark  me,  in  the  hands  of  a  few, 
they  are  not  of  equal  value;  in  the  hands  of  the  National  Banks;  the- 
National  Bank  notes  are  worth  107  cents  on  the  dollar  in  gold,  and  why? 
Because  they  can  exchange  them  for  6  per  cent  bonds!  It  cannot  be 
claimed  that  this  illustration  is  not  a  fair  one,  because  the  National  Banks 
had  first  deposited  the  bonds.  The  same  would  be  true  of  the  people 
under  the  interconvertible  plan.  It  is  a  possible  conversion  into  an  interest- 
bearing  bond  that  gives  them  the  value  of  gold.  In  this  supposed  case, 
the  value  is  higher  than  gold,  because  of  the  high  rate  of  interest.  It  is 
clear  that  it  would  approximate  gold  in  value,  as  the  rate  was  lowered, 
and  the  exact  rate  where  they  would  be  equal,  can  only  be  approximately 
determined,  without  experience.  From  all  known  data,  it  could  not  vary 
essentially  from  3-65 — 100  per  cent. 

This  possible  conversion  into  an  interest  bearing  bond  is  an  act  of 
justice  to  the  people  on  which  we  cannot  speak  too  strongly.  It  is  as 
sacred  a  debt  as  any  the  Government  owes,  and  it  has  no  more  moral 
right  than  an  individual  to  make  distinctions  in  its  creditors.  It  is  a  piece 
of  gross  injustice,  and  its  legitimate  fruit  is  the  depreciation  of  the  currency. 

2.  Would  this  wisely  regulate  the  volume  of  currency?  I  answer 
unhesitatingly  that  it  would  do  so  as  unerringly  and  wisely  as  the  governor 
regulates  the  speed  and  power  of  the  engine.  It  could  not  vary  in  the 
slightest  degree  either  in  amount  or  time.  If  there  is  more  currency  today 
that  can  find  employment  at  a  reasonably  greater  profit  than  the  rate  of 
interest  on  the  bonds,  then  to-morrow  that  surplus  currency  is  swallowed 
up  in  the  bonds.  If  the  next  day  the  legitimate  demands  of  borrowers 
for  trade  or  manufacture  carry  the  rate  reasonably  above  the  rate  of  in- 
terest on  the  bonds,  then  the  next  day  after  the  currency  is  out  again. 
The  principle  is -right  and  the  result  is  unerring.  It  has  its  foundation 
in  the  inflexible  laws  of  God  and  of  human  nature  and  cannot  fail.  The 
value  and  volume  depend  upon  each  other  and  each  are  assured  beyond 
contingency.  The  whole  people  govern  it  and  no  man,  or  one  set  of  men, 
can  materially  alter  the  result.  If  the  people  think  they  can  better  prosper 
by  having  their  whole  debt  in  a  bond,  the  rate  of  interest  on  which  makes 
it  just  the  equivalent  of  gold,  it  is  their  right  to  so  have  it. 

26 


While  the  world  goes  along  quietly  in  the  belief  that  this  amendment 
has  been  accepted  by  God,  all  is  serene;  but  when  some  doubter  comes 
up,  as  they  always  do,  then  disaster  must  come:  It  is  inevitable.  You 
are  every  one  doubtless  familiar  with  the  entire  insufficiency  of  the  volume 
of  gold  in  the  world,  to  serve  as  its  circulating  medium,  and  I  will  only 
cite  a  few  facts  and  contrasts. 

There  is  in  the  entire  world,  as  gathered  from  the  most  reliable  authori- 
ties, about  5,600  millions  of  gold.  This  is  scattered  everywhere,  and  each 
country  has  but  a  limited  portion  of  it.  England  is  on  a  legal  specie  basis 
and  all  loanable  capital  there  is  supposed  to  be  immediately  convertible 
into  gold.  There  is  there,  as  stated  by  the  best  authorities,  about  5,000 
millions  of  loanable  capital,  or  nearly  as  much  as  there  is  of  gold  in  the 
entire  world.  The  owners  of  that  5,000  millions  capital  are  legally  entitled 
to  call  for  gold,  and  you  can  imagine  the  result,  if  they  should  do  so.  Such 
a  law  is  a  fraud  and  a  breader  of  panics,  convulsions  and  commercial  dis- 
asters. 

Take  another  fact  to  show,  not  only  the  utter  insufficiency  of  gold, 
but  to  show  the  further  fact,  or  how  little  importance  that  insufficiency  is, 
and  how  we  ignore  it  in  our  estimate  of  values. 

The  total  amount  of  the  indebtedness  of  the  principal  nations  of  the 
earth  is  at  the  present  time  about  27,000  millions  of  dollars,  all  payable 
in  gold;  or  five  times  the  amount  of  gold  there  is  in  the  world.  Suppose 
for  a  moment  that  the  owners  of  the  5,000  millions  of  loanable  capital  of 
England  should  call  for  their  gold,  and  get  it — as  English  law  is  said  to 
be  very  potent — then  what  are  the  owners  of  27,000  millions  of  bonds 
going  to  do?  There  is  not  a  cent  on  a  dollar  left  for  them;  and  yet,  in  the 
face  of  this  well  known  fact,  these  bonds  are  to  a  great  extent  worth  their 
face  and  upwards  in  gold,  There  is  no  law  for  their  demand  payment, 
and  the  fact  that  there  is  not  a  cent  on  the  dollar  for  their  final  payment, 
is  not  of  the  slightest  moment.  Being  all  payable  in  the  same  material 
they  are  all  on  the  same  footing.  The  holders  will  never  want  them  paid, 
and  if  the  givers  wish  and  are  able  to  pay  them,  they  have  time  to  absorb 
them  in  taxes,  and  pay  them  in  something  besides  gold. 

If  a  currency  is  equal  to  gold  from  its  intrinsic  worth,  then  its  demand 
conversion  is  a  financial  axiom,  and  no  harmful  and  fraudulent  legal  enact- 
ment is  necessary  to  enable  the  holder  to  make  the  conversion  at  will. 

Where  a  useful  thing  is  scarce  in  nature,  its  value  is  legitimately 
affected  by  that  fact,  but  to  endeavor  to  enhance  the  value  of  anything 
by  making  it  scarce  is  always  a  measure  of  at  least  doubtful  propriety. 

Greenbacks  are  either  good  or  bad.  If  good,  they  can  and  ought  to 
be  maintained  at  par  with  gold  to  an  amount  optional  with  the  people 
using  them.  If  they  are  bad  they  should  be  done  away  with  entirely,  for 
we  are  no  beggars  in  the  family  of  nations,  to  accept  and  hold  a  currency 
of  less  value  than  theirs.  Thus  far  in  our  career  as  a  Nation  have  we  stood 
well  up,  advancing  every  year  with  firm  and  steady  step  to  the  extreme 
front.  Thus  far  have  we  been  a  beacon  light  of  freedom  to  the  oppressed 
nations  of  the  earth,  and  human  liberty  has  taken  firm  root  in  the  world 
from  our  example.  Thus  far  have  we  borne  the  burdens  almost  of  Christen- 
dom. From  the  days  that  Spain  welcomed  back  Columbus  to  her  shores, 
down  to  the  present  year  of  grace,  has  the  wealth  of  America  in  every  form 
spread  over  Europe.  England  would  have  been  little  better  than  a  pauper 
to-day,  but  for  the  boundless  wealth  of  America,  that  has  been  showered 
upon  her.  If  Europe's  masses  are  hungry,  our  bread  floats  over  the  ocean 

27 


to  them,  almost  before  the  twinge  of  pain  reaches  their  little  ones.  If 
England's  poor  are  idle,  we  have  hired  them  to  do  our  work  and  let  our 
own  people  stand  and  rest.  If  the  hordes  of  Asia  multiply  faster  than 
food  and  clothing,  hither  do  they  come  in  tawny  troops  and  find  enough 
and  to  spare.  The  young  giant  America  is  bound  yet  to  be  the  Atlas  of 
fable  and  bear  the  round  world  upon  his  shoulders.  It  is  not  necessary 
for  us  to  say  to  our  farmers,  "You  must  not  make  two  blades  of  grass  grow 
where  one  grew  before,"  lest  its  value  be  decreased.  It  is  not  necessary  for 
us  to  tell  our  young  men  they  shall  not  be  taught,  lest  the  market  be  glutted 
with  knowledge.  It  is  not  necessary  for  us  to  permit  our  currency,  the 
mere  tool  in  our  hands,  to  remain  of  doubtful  value,  or  to  be  doled  out  by 
arbitrary  rules  made  as  long  ago  as  were  the  laws  of  the  Medes  or  Persians; 
ours  is  a  newer  and  fresher  civilization.  It  is  the  life  of  today  and  the 
future,  and  not  of  yesterday  and  the  past.  We  are  working  out  the  problem 
in  our  own  time  and  in  our  own  way,  and  let  us  see  to  it  that  in  finances 
and  progress,  as  well  as  in  everything  else,  it  is  a  "Government  of  the 
People,  for  the  People  and  by  the  People." 

My  third  resolution  is : 

Resolved,  That  the  way  to  attain  the  inestimable  benefits  of  a  cir- 
culating medium  equal  to  gold,  and  of  a  volume  adequate  and  adapted  to 
the  needs  of  trade  and  progress,  is  to  have  an  exclusive  Government  currency 
based  on  its  indebtedness,  receivable  for  all  its  dues  and  interconvertible 
at  the  will  of  the  holder  with  its  low  interest-bearing  bonds,  principal  and 
interest,  payable  in  gold  or  its  equivalent. 

If  they  think  they  can  use  500  millions  or  1,000  millions,  or  the  whole 
debt,  to  a  greater  profit  and  advantage  in  the  way  of  trade  and  manufacture, 
than  to  let  it  remain  stored  up  in  bonds,  that  also  is  their  right,  and  should 
be  their  privilege.  To  attempt  to  keep  the  people  in  leading  strings,  and 
within  set  and  rigid  bounds,  in  the  matter  of  currency,  is  as  absurd  and 
harmful  as  for  a  railroad  to  say  that  just  so  many  cars  shall  do  the  business 
of  one  road,  or  for  a  city  or  state  to  prescribe  rigid  rules  of  settlement. 
Give  the  people  only  opportunity,  and  their  will  and  energy  will  do  the  rest. 

Should  our  congress  enact  this  interconvertible  law,  it  would  go  far 
to  nullify  that  impossible  and  most  unwise,  if  not  criminal,  of  late  enact- 
ments, the  co-called  specie  resumption  act.  Only  give  the  people  the 
option  to  have  no  currency  at  all,  or  to  have  all  they  could  keep  equal  to 
gold,  and  the  magic  wand  would  have  touched  our  nation.  She  would 
rise  from  her  lethargy  and  distress,  and  stretch  her  giant,  though  yet 
undeveloped  limbs,  as  no  nation  on  earth  ever  did  before.  Gold  would 
come  up  from  her  iron  and  coal  mines,  and  from  her  cotton  and  wheat 
fields.  It  would  pour  out  of  her  mountains  and  forests  and  would  roll 
down  her  water  courses.  From  the  laborer's  sinews  to  the  scholar's  brain, 
every  power  and  talent  would  be  convertible  and  interconvertible  at 
will  into  the  coin  of  the  realm.  Then  would  the  good  man's  brow  be 
smoothed,  and  his  good  wife's  table  be  spread.  Then  would  the  sorrowful 
steps  of  the  returning  emigrant  be  arrested  and  turned  hitherward  again, 
and  those  of  his  brethern  again  started  to  join  him.  Then  should  we  find 
for  a  certainty,  that  for  the  present,  in  America  at  least,  under-consumption 
is  a  more  real  and  to  be  dreaded  evil  than  over-production,  whatever  else 
we  may  want  in  the  future;  and  whatever  other  issues  may  arise,  whether 
you  be  Democrat  or  Republican,  remember  that  the  Nation's  progress  and 
prosperity  is  of  the  first  importance  and  that  the  sure  and  only  road  to 
that  is  money.  Let  our  motto  be,  "Good  as  Gold,"  and  plenty  of  it. 


Early  in  1876  a  Greenback  Club  was  organized  in 
Milwaukee.  George  Burnham,  a  prominent  and  wealthy 
brick  manufacturer,  was  made  its  President,  and  other  men 
of  prominence  were  members.  One  of  the  first  to  receive 
an  invitation  to  address  this  club  was  Mr.  Allis,  and  he  was 
soon  followed  by  Judge  Harlow  S.  Orton. 

Mr.  Allis's  address  was  copied  and  favorably  commented 
upon  in  various  directions  outside  of  Wisconsin.  A.  R. 
Anthony,  for  example,  who  was  one  of  the  local  figures  in 
the  early  Abolition  struggle  in  Kansas,  a  brother  of  Susan  B. 
Anthony,  the  woman's  suffrage  leader,  copied  it  in  his  daily 
paper,  the  Leavenworth  Times,  and  the  Winchester  Illinois 
Independent,  a  weekly,  the  Iron  Age  of  Chicago,  an  im- 
portant iron  trade  journal,  and  others,  reprinted  and  dis- 
cussed it. 

Early  in  February,  the  16th,  the  Washington  corres- 
pondence of  the  Chicago  Tribune  said  that  "Soft  money" 
Republicans  at  the  capitol  had  predicted  four  presidential 
candidates,  a  hard  and  a  soft  money  candidate  for  each  party. 

The  Wisconsin  Republicans,  under  pressure  from  the 
conservative  German  voters,  made  an  effort  to  stand  up 
against  the  rising  demand  for  an  inflated  currency,  though 
not  a  very  vigorous  one.  On  the  22nd  of  February  1876,  the 
State  Convention  adopted  a  platform  in  which  is  the  follow- 
ing paragraph: 

We  believe  in  Honest  Money.  That  the  currency  of  the  Nation 
should,  as  soon  as  consistent  with  business  interests  and  safety,  be  made 
equal  to  gold,  and  until  that  time  should  continue  as  a  legal  tender. 

The  Greenback  propaganda  was  now  well  in  progress 
in  Wisconsin. 


I 


Organizing  Wisconsin 


CHAPTER  FOUR. 


N  the  exercise  of  the  discretion  with  which  it  had  been 
invested  by  the  meeting  of  January  18th,  1876,  the 
State  Committee  called  a  second  meeting  at  Madison 
on  the  10th  of  May  of  that  year. 

This  meeting  was  described  in  the  Milwaukee  Sentinel 
as  "a  flat  failure,"  with  "only  a  dozen  present,"  but  it  chose 
a  full  delegation  of  twenty  men  to  attend  the  National 
Convention  called  to  meet  at  Indianapolis,  Ind.,  on  the  17th 
of  May.  The  delegates-at-large  selected,  were;  J.  H. 
Osborne,  E.  P.  Allis,  Judge  Harlow  S.  Orton,  and  William 
Orledge.  An  Electoral  Ticket  was  also  named,  headed  by 
William  Orledge  of  Kenosha,  and  G.  W.  Lee  of  Grant  county, 
as  electors  at  large.  A  State  Central  Committee  was  named, 
as  follows: 

At  Large,  Wm.  Orledge, 

1st  District,  G.  O.  West,  of  Walworth, 

2nd  District,  H.  S.  Orton,  of  Dane, 

3rd  District,  G.  W.  Lee,  of  Grant, 

4th  District,  A.  N.  Horner,  of  Milwaukee, 

5th  District,  E.  N.  McGraw,  of  Sheboygan, 

6th  District,  G.  H.  Foster,  of  Winnebago, 

7th  District,  E.  S.  Miner,  of  Juneau. 

There  was  no  state  election  held  in  that  year. 

The  campaign  developed  some  discussion  through  the 
newspapers  but  the  nominees  of  the  "Independent  National 
Party,"  as  it  was  named  at  Indianapolis,  got  few  votes  in 
Wisconsin.  McKee's  publication,  "National  Conventions 
and  Platforms,"  shows  that  the  nominees  for  President  and 

so 


Vice  President,  Peter  Cooper  of  New  York,  and  Samuel  F. 
Gary  of  Ohio,  got  but  81,740  votes  in  the  entire  nation  and 
but  1509  in  the  state  of  Wisconsin.  But  the  Greenback 
Party  was  launched  and  the  controversy  that  ended  in  giving 
the  presidency  to  Hayes,  through  the  extra-constitutional 
Electoral  Commission,  did  not  allay  the  prevailing  political 
uneasiness  or  settle  the  financial  difficulties.  The  Green- 
backers  argued  that  these  difficulties  were  due  to  the  mis- 
taken financial  policy  of  the  Republican  Party  and  the 
nearer  drew  the  date  fixed  for  specie  resumption,  the  more 
men  there  were  who  thought  the  financial  stringency  and 
business  depression  due  entirely  to  this  impending  calamity. 

In  advance  of  the  State  conventions  of  1877,  there  was 

freat  discussion  of  financial  subjects  throughout  the  country, 
t  was  confined  to  no  political  party,  and  struck  terror  to 
the  hearts  of  all  the  old  political  managers. 

What  was  true  generally,  was  true  locally,  in  Wisconsin. 
The  Republican  leaders,  especially  those  in  Congress  seeking 
re-election,  and  those  ambitious  for  places  on  the  State 
Tickets,  were  on  the  verge  of  a  stampede  to  the  Greenbackers. 
This  sentiment,  and  the  elements  behind  it,  are  well  de-J 
picted  in  a  Wisconsin  dispatch  that  appeared  in  the  Chicago 
Tribune  of  September  10,  1877,  on  the  eve  of  the  Republican 
State  Convention.  It  was  as  follows: 

WISCONSIN. 
MEETING  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  STATE  CONVENTION. 


(Special  Correspondence  of  the  Tribune,  Chicago) 
THE  CURRENCY  QUESTION. 

The  most  serious  question  that  confronts  the  Republican  Party  of 
Wisconsin  today,  is  the  currency,  and  with  that  the  Convention  will  be 
expected  to  deal  Tuesday.  Not  only  is  the  financial  subject  one  of  vital 
and  intensely  practical  importance  to  all  classes  of  people  on  its  own  account, 
but  other  circumstances  that  have  transpired  in  this  State  tend  to  make 
it  more  difficult  of  solution,  and  more  delicate  to  handle.  There  is  already 
a  Greenback  Ticket  in  the  field,  with  all  that  the  name  implies,  headed  by 
E.  P.  Allis,  of  this  city,  for  Governor,  who  is  already  on  the  stump,  assisted 
by  many  other  good  speakers,  and  clubs  are  being  rapidly  formed  and 
campaign  papers  are  springing  up  in  his  favor.  Mr.  Allis  is  a  first  class 
man  every  way,  of  high  social  disposition,  a  graduate  of  *Yale,  and  well 
and  favorably  known  as  a  business  man  throughout  the  Northwest.  What 
Macaulay  once  said  of  Pitt,  that  "He  chose  his  side  like  a  fanatic,  and 
then  defended  it  like  a  philosopher,"  may  be  true  of  Allis,  for  without 


*Error,  Union  College. 

31 


saying  that  he  has  chosen  his  side  like  a  fanatic,  he  certainly  defends  his 
position  with  a  great  deal  of  skill  and  ability.  He  has  been  an  active  and 
consistent  Republican  until  now,  and  it  is  thought  by  many  shrewd  ob- 
servers that  his  vote  will  astonish  everyone.  So  the  Republicans  must 
place  themselves  in  a  position  to  hold  some  of  the  vote  that  has  been  so 
seriously  affected  by  the  Greenback  theory,  or  their  ticket,  no  matter  how 
good  it  may  be  personally,  will  be  in  iminent  danger  of  defeat  at  the  polls, 
because  Allis's  vote  will  be  drawn  much  more  largely  from  the  Republicans 
than  from  the  Democrats.  If  the  Convention  Tuesday  will  have  the 
courage  to  declare  in  favor  of  the  repeal  of  the  resumption  act,  of  the 
restoration  of  the  silver  dollar,  and  in  favor  of  a  convertible  bond  drawing 
a  low  rate  of  interest,  it  would  cause  Mr.  Allis  to  withdraw,  most  likely, 
and  insure  the  success  of  the  ticket.  The  Democratic  State  Convention 
is  sure  to  do  just  this,  or  at  least  to  incorporate  enough  glittering  general- 
ities into  their  platform  upon  the  subject  of  finance  to  hold  their  votes 
from  supporting  the  Greenback  candidate. 

This  situation,  locally,  is  well  described  by  A.  M.  Thomp- 
son, in  his  Political  History  of  Wisconsin.  Mr.  Thompson 
had  been  the  editor  of  the  Milwaukee  Sentinel,  and  was,  at 
this  time,  a  Republican  of  wide  acquaintance  and  influence. 
His  statements  reflect  the  conditions  of  the  time  as  seen 
through  Republican  eyes.  He  says: 

The  Greenback  craze  had  become  epidemic  among  a  certain  class. 
Specie  payments  had  been  suspended  at  the  outbreak  of  the  Rebellion,  and 
a  law  had  been  passed  by  Congress  fixing  the  first  day  of  January  1879, 
as  the  time  when  the  nation  would  resume  coin  payments.  There  was  a 
widespread  belief  among  many  timid  people,  and  especially  among  busi- 
ness men,  that  the  attempt  to  resume  would  ignominiously  fail;  that  there 
was  not  gold  enough  in  the  country  to  justify  the  experiment,  and  some 
boards  of  trade  and  some  political  conventions  demanded  that  the  law  be 
repealed,  and  that  resumption  should  be  deferred  until  the  country  was  in 
better  condition  to  stand  the  change. 

The  Greenback  heresy  was  not  confined  to  the  Democratic  and  Social- 
istic Parties,  it  had  permeated  the  Republican  masses  as  well,  and  many 
men  voted  the  straight  Republican  Ticket  while  they  believed  that  the 
Soft  Money  theories  of  their  opponents  were  more  than  half  right;  without 
the  greenback  the  great  Rebellion  could  not  have  been  crushed;  the  soldiers 
were  paid  with  them,  and  they  had  a  fondness  for  that  kind  of  currency. 

The  Republican  State  Convention,  which  met  September  11,  1877, 
was  influenced  by  the  fear  that  if  it  put  forth  a  truly  Sound  Money  platform 
it  would  have  a  disastrous  effect  upon  the  result,  and  it  prevaricated  and 
dodged.  Its  utterance  on  the  money  question  was  hypocritical;  the  voice 
was  Jacob's  voice,  but  the  hands  were  the  hands  of  Esau.  Disguising  its 
real  position  the  Convention  spoke  with  a  double  tongue  to  the  green- 
backers,  hoping  to  get  their  votes.  It  resolved,  among  other  things, 
"that  we  hold  the  silver  dollar  should  be  restored  to  its  former  place  as 
money  and  made  legal  tender  in  the  payment  of  debts,  except  when  other- 
wise distinctly  provided  by  law,"  etc.  This  was  a  virtual  recognition  of 
the  truth  of  the  charge  made  by  their  opponents  that  a  change  had  been 
made  in  the  status  of  the  silver  dollar,  which,  in  the  parlance  of  the  day 
was  designated  "The  crime  of  73."  The  Republicans  had  good  reason  to 


feel  alarmed  and  it  is  no  wonder  the  Convention  wobbled.  Many  strong 
men  had  gone  out  from  their  party,  and  allied  themselves  with  parties 
which  boldly  declared  in  favor  of  the  inflationist  idea. 

The  Republican  Resolutions  to  which  Mr.  Thompson 
refers,  made  the  following  cross-eyed  declaration. 

That  we  rejoice  that  the  fidelity  of  the  Republican  Party  in  upholding 
the  National  credit  has  brought  our  currency  so  near  the  point  of  resumption 
of  specie  payment;  we  hold  that  the  silver  dollar  should  be  restored  to  its 
former  place  as  money  and  made  legal  tender  for  the  payment  of  debts, 
except  when  otherwise  distinctly  provided  by  law,  with  coinage  so  regu- 
lated as  to  maintain  equality  of  value,  preserve  the  harmonious  circulation 
of  gold,  silver  and  legal  tender  notes,  as  money. 

In  proof  of  Mr.  Thompsons's  statement  that  the  alarm 
was  general,  it  is  only  necessary  to  quote  the  names  of  the 
prominent  men  composing  the  Committee  on  Resolutions, 
that  reported  the  platform  from  which  the  above  resolution 
is  taken.  They  were: 

*At  Large,  Gen.  Edwin  E.  Bryant, 

1st  District,  B.  B.  Northrup,  H.  L.  Dousman, 

2nd  District,  James  T.  Lewis,  George  W.  Burchard, 

3rd  District,  John  Luchsinger,  W.  B.  Clark, 

4th  District,  Angus  Smith,  Florian  J.  Ries, 

5th  District,  Thos.  W.  Spence,  A.  D.  Jones, 

6th  District,  Gen.  Thos.  S.  Allen,  C.  E.  Crane, 

7th  District,  John  C.  Spooner,  A.  Finklenberg, 

8th  District,  Thajd^CJound,  Charles  M.  Webb, 

Many  of  these  were  men  of  more  than  local  prominence. 
James   T.    Lewis    was    a  former  Governor.     Gen.    "Tom" 
Allen  was    one  of    the  proprietors  of  the  Oshkosh  North- 
western   and    a    veteran    of    the    famous    "Iron    Brigade." 
/  Thad.  C.  Pound   had   been  Lieutenant  Governor  and  was 
/  "elected  to  Congress  that  fall.     George  W.  Burchard  was, 
r  jater,   Adjutant  General  under  Governor  Hoard.   John   C. 
Spooner  became  United  States  Senator.     Charles  M.  Webb 
has,  for  many  years,  been  Judge  of  the  Seventh  Circuit, 
and    the   others  were  all  men   of   local   importance.     This 
Committee,  too,  was  quite  typical  of  the  entire  convention. 
W.  T.   Price,  J.   V.  Quarles.  J.  M.   Rusk,  H.  A.  Taylor, 
Charles  Ray,  G.  Van  Steenwyk  and  dozens  of  names  of 
equally  prominent  politicians,   bankers   and   business   men 
are  to  be  found  in  the  roll  of  that  convention. 

Serious  rumblings  of  discontent  were  soon  heard,  and 
Horace  Rublee,  Chairman  of  the  Republican  State  Central 
Committee,  immediately  took  heroic  measures.  He  ar- 

*From  the  Madison  State  Journal,  Sept.  11,  1877. 

33 


ranged  a  ratification  meeting  in  Milwaukee,  which  was 
attended  by  all  the  candidates  on  the  Republican  State 
Ticket  and  by  leading  Republican  business  men,  especially 
marshalled  for  the  occasion,  from  all  parts  of  Wisconsin. 
At  this  meeting  the  Convention  Platform  was  repudiated 
and  a  new  set  of  resolutions  adopted,  of  which  the  following, 
tart  one,  is  a  sample: 

We  denounce  as  dangerous,  delusive  and  disreputable  all  schemes 
and  devices  affecting  the  financial  policy  of  the  Government  that  do  not 
contemplate  the  honest  payment  of  the  public  debt  and  the  speedy  attain- 
ment of  a  currency  on  a  gold  basis. 

It  is  doubtful  if  there  is  another  case  on  record,  certainly 
there  is  none  in  Wisconsin  political  annals,  where  a  mass 
meeting  repudiated  and  trampled  upon  the  platform  of  the 
regularly  constituted  convention  of  a  party,  and  then 
marched  on  to  victory. 

There  certainly  was  Republican  alarm  to  call  for  such 
drastic  measures.  It  was  not  far  to  seek.  Mr.  Thompson 
explains  it. 

A  State  Convention  of  the  Middle-of-the-Road  Greenbackers  had  been 
held  in  Portage  City,  July  4,  of  that  year,  and  nominated  a  full  Ticket  for 
State  Officers,  with  Edward  P.  Allis  of  Milwaukee,  a  great  manufacturer 
and  able  man,  as  the  candidate  for  Governor.  Mr.  Allis  accepted  the 
nomination  in  a  well-prepared  and  elaborate  speech  in  which  he  extolled 
the  greenback  for  the  efficienct  service  it  had  rendered  the  people  of  the 
United  States  in  their  hour  of  peril,  and  declared  that  it  had  still  other 
triumphs  to  achieve  in  the  currency  of  the  country. 

The  Portage  Convention  knew  what  it  wanted  and  said  it 
in  most  explicit  and  unmistakable  language.  It  resolved: 

We  deemed  the  immediate  repeal  of  the  specie  resumption  act  of 
January  12,  1875,  the  rescue  of  our  industries  from  the  disasters  and  ruin 
resulting  from  its  enforcement,  and  the  arrest  of  the  suicidal  and  destructive 
policy  of  contraction. 

We  declare  that  it  is  the  exclusive  function  of  the  Government  to 
supply  a  currency  for  the  people,  and  that  such  currency,  whether  paper 
or  metal,  should  be  issued  by  and  bear  the  stamp  of  the  Federal  Government. 

We  believe  that  paper  money,  issued  by  the  Government,  and  made 
*  legal  tender  *  *  and  interconvertible  with  bonds  *  *  will 
afford  the  best  circulating  medium  ever  devised. 

Mr.  Thompson's  high  estimate  of  Mr.  Allis  explains  the 
secret  of  much  of  this  Republican  alarm  and  is  worthy  of 
repetition  in  this  connection. 

*  he  started  in  the  iron  business,  and  laid  the  foundation  of  one 
of  the  largest  establishments  of  the  kind  in  the  United  States,  giving  con- 
stant employment  to  1800  men,  and  sending  his  manufactured  goods  to 
all  parts  of  the  world.  As  the  head  of  a  great  business  he  had  the  rare 

34 


and  imperial  power  of  marshalling  and  controlling  his  business  with  great 
firmness  and  quick  decisiveness  that  never  for  a  moment  permitted  the 
business  to  be  the  master.  His  quickness  of  thought  and  action  has  often 
been  remarked.  While  others  were  planning,  he  had  planned  and  was 
executing. 

He  was  noted  for  the  liberality  with  which  he  treated  his  employees 
and  the  men  in  his  employ  were  strongly  attached  to  him.  His  well- 
known  deep  sympathy  with  the  laboring  men  secured  him  many  votes 
for  Governor  from  men  who  had  no  patience  with  his  erratic  theories  on 
finance. 

The  Democratic  State  Convention  also  showed  alarm 
and  it  adopted  what  was  virtually  a  Greenback  Platform, 
of  which  Gen.  Edward  S.  Bragg,  then  a  member  of  Congress, 
was  the  author.  The  convention  was  held  in  General 
Bragg's  home  city,  and  the  platform  entered  into  history 
as  the  "Fond  du  Lac  Platform." 

General  Bragg  told  me  many  years  afterward,  that  he  was 
entirely  sincere  in  the  fear  that  "forced  resumption,"  as  it 
was  then  called,  would  be  fraught  with  great  industrial  and 
financial  perils.  He  found  that  feeling  very  general  in 
Washington  and  throughout  the  entire  East. 

Upon  this  platform  the  Democrats  nominated,  for 
Governor,  Judge  James  A.  Mallory,  who  had,  a  month 
earlier,  been  a  Delegate  in  the  Greenback  Convention  that 
nominated  Mr.  Allis,  and  had  himself  been  spoken  of  for  the 
Greenback  nomination.  This  program  was  designed  to 
promote  a  division  of  Greenback  strength,  and  the  Demo- 
crats who  favored  it  vainly  hoped  to  gain  by  it,  but  in  this 
they  were  grievously  disappointed,  which  is  the  usual 
result  of  any  attempt  of  a  political  party  to  straddle  upon  a 
vital  proposition.  It  is  an  invariable  rule  in  politics,  that 
the  larger  political  organization  loses  more  than  it  gains  by 
attempting  fusion  with  other  incongruous  political  elements. 

The  Socialist  Democrats  made  their  entrance  into  State 
politics,  in  this  year,  and  they,  too,  endorsed  the  Greenback 
idea,  but  they  cut  no  figure  in  the  result.  It  was  the  Repub- 
lican Party  against  the  field,  and  the  outcome  made  it  quite 
clear  that  a  majority  of  the  votes  of  the  State  were  arrayed, 
in  their  opinions  on  financial  questions,  against  the  dominant 
party,  but  they  were  so  divided  through  past  political 
associations,  and  so  kept  apart  by  former  politcal  prejudices 
as  to  be  ineffective.  The  Republican  candidate  for  Gover- 
nor, William  E.  Smith,  was  elected  by  what  was  then  a 
narrow  plurality  of  8,273,  and  the  combined  Democratic 

35 


and  Greenback  vote  was  18,416  greater  than  the  total 
Republican  vote  polled.  The  Republicans,  by  their  ultra 
stand  against  greenbacks  and  in  favor  of  the  resumption  of 
specie  payments,  drew  the  German  vote,  then  a  large 
political  factor  in  Wisconsin,  in  both  parties,  almost  solidly 
to  the  Republican  Ticket. 

The  report  was  current  at  the  time  Mr.  Allis  accepted 
the  Greenback  nomination,  that  he  had  promise  of  the 
Democratic  endorsement  from  Milwaukee  Democrats  of 
prominence,  but  they  could  not  deliver  the  goods.  Had  he 
received  it  the  result  might,  possibly,  have  been  more 
doubtful.  But  the  Republicans  would  have  been  thoroughly 
frightened,  and  the  probabilities  would  still  have  been 
against  his  election,  as  he  would,  no  doubt,  have  lost  many 
Democratic  votes  to  the  Republicans,  who  as  it  was,  stuck  to 
their  own  party  ticket,  although  they  disagreed  with  the 
Democratic  Platform. 


36 


Mr.  Allis  Nominated  for  Governor 


CHAPTER  FIVE. 


DURING  the  last  months  of  1876  the  long  financial 
stringency  that  had  followed  the  panic  of  1873, 
carried  down  many  large  commercial  and  manu- 
facturing enterprises.  In  Milwaukee  the  great 
hardware  house  of  John  Nazro,  was  ruined,  and  E. P. Allis 
&  Co.,  were  forced  to  compound  with  their  creditors.  Natu- 
rally, Mr.  Allis's  old  Republican  associates  were  inclined  to 
point  to  his  financial  troubles  as  evidence  that  his  political 
judgment  was  warped  by  his  misfortunes.  Later  on,  when 
a  candidate  for  Governor,  he  was  occasionally  attacked  by 
the  opposition  press  with  the  charge  of  insincerity  and  a 
desire  to  further  his  own  interests  through  his  Greenback 
politics.  This  was,  perhaps,  legitimate  campaign  material 
for  his  opponents,  but  it  was  notable,  that  most  of  them, 
especially  in  their  speeches  and  newspapers,  recognizing  his 
large  calibre,  high  character,  and  important  influence, 
treated  him  with  great  respect.  This  was,  perhaps,  more 
unusual  then  than  it  would  be  today,  although  we  now  hear 
"muck-raking"  denounced,  but  then  political  newspapers 
still  reflected,  in  their  personalities,  the  deep  and  bitter 
intensities  of  feeling  and  expression  developed  by  the 
excitements  of  Civil  War. 

It  was  a  recognition  of  this  high  standing  which  helped 
force  upon  Mr.  Allis  political  leadership  in  the  newly  organ- 
ized party,  and  his  acceptance  of  the  burden  was  evidence 
of  his  sincerity  and  courage.  While  his  opponents  were 
respectful,  his  own  party  associates,  including  the  voting 
rank  and  file,  were  deeply  impressed  with  appreciation  of 
his  value  to  their  cause,  and  the  feeling  still  remains  among 

37 


the  survivors  of  the  Greenback  campaigns.  It  was 
briefly  yet  comprehensively  expressed  in  a  private  letter  to 
the  writer,*  recently  received,  from  S.  F.  Norton,  of  Chicago, 
who  in  the  seventies  edited  the  Chicago  Sentinel,  one  of  the 
important  Greenback  newspapers  of  the  West.  Mr.  Norton 
writes: — "Mr.  Allis  was  one  of  the  best  and  noblest  men  I 
ever  knew."  In  this  quite  unusual  way  he  was,  and  is, 
spoken  of  by  those  who  met  him  in  the  councils  of  the  Green- 
back Party.  He  was  not  "a  good  fellow,"  with  the  doubtful 
suggestions  of  that  too  often  dubious  compliment.  He  was 
an  earnest,  rather  reserved,  taciturn  man,  of  patriotic  pur- 
poses and  clean  methods,  who  was  ready  to  do  his  part, 
sturdily  for  a  cause  in  which  he  believed. 

Mr.  Allis's  speech  in  1876  had  called  forth  many  rejoin- 
ders from  Republican  sources.  From  the  first  although 
George  Easterly,  a  large  manufacturer  of  agricultural  im- 
plements, at  Whitewater,  was  a  prominent  pamphleteer  and 
newspaper  contributor,  and  President  Steele,  of  Lawrence 
University  and  others  were  pressing  the  Greenback  idea 
upon  public  attention  in  Wisconsin,  Mr.  Allis  was  treated 
by  opponents  of  the  doctrine  as  the  fore  front  of  the  agitation 
in  this  State. 

The  only  other  Wisconsin  man,  who  seems  to  have  made 
a  permanent  impression  with  his  Greenback  arguments,  was 
President  Steele,  whose  fpamphlet  "The  Currency  Question," 
which  appeared  in  1876,  is  still  referred  to  as  one  of  the  more 
conservative  expressions  on  that  side  of  the  question. 

President  Steele's  pamphlet  is  an  elaborate  argument 
for  unlimited  paper,  rather  than  a  gold  currency,  with  a 
commodity  as  its  basis  which  would  be  liable  to  market 
fluctuations,  while  paper  would  furnish  a  purely  token 
currency.  He  follows  in  the  pathway  of  all  his  predecessors, 
and  states  the  argument  for  an  interconvertible  bond,  but 
he  does  not  give  it  unqualified  endorsement,  as  do  some  of 
his  compeers.  He  declined  to  accept  Edward  Kellogg's 
plan  as  an  infallible  cure.  He  was  less  cock-sure  than  some 
of  his  contemporaries,  for  he  said: 

I  am  not  absolutely  clear  as  to  the  success  of  this  plan.  It  is  untried, 
and  we  know  not  what  difficulties  it  may  involve  in  practice.  But  I  see 
no  reason  why  it  would  not  be  safe,  and,  at  least,  vastly  superior  to  any 
system  heretofore  prevailing. 

*1909. 

tThe  Encyclopedia  of  Social  Reform,  Wm.  B.  P.  Bliss,  editor,  1908, 
p.  563.  See  also  Appendix  No.  1. 

38 


Early  in  the  year  1877,  Mr.  Allis  was  found  publicly 
defending  his  faith  in  a  letter  addressed  to  The  Milwaukee 
Sentinel,  which  exhibits  the  character  of  his  reasoning  and 
the  depth  of  his  feeling  at  that  time.  After  saying  that  the 
Republican  policy  was  filling  the  land  "with  idle  industries, 
with  bankrupts,  tramps  and  beggars,"  he  closes  as  follows: 

Speak  as  highly  as  you  will  of  the  Republican  Party  and  the  glorious 
work  it  did,  and  give  full  meed  of  praise  to  Grant's  administration,  but 
tread  lightly  upon  its  financial  policy,  while  the  country  is  strewed  with 
its  wrecks. 

When  the  spring  of  1877  opened,  the  Greenback  Party  of 
Wisconsin  was  alert  early,  and  the  leaders  were,  evidently, 
in  close  touch  with  those  of  other  states,  and  in  high  stand- 
ing in  the  National  councils  of  the  party. 

The  Milwaukee  Sentinel  of  May  31st,  1877,  editorially, 
says  that  a  number  of  Wisconsin  Greenback  men  met  at 
Sparta,  on  the  previous  day  and  effected  an  organization 
by  appointing  the  following  State  Central  Committee: 

1st  District,  James  Montgomery,     of  Rock, 

2nd  District,  D.  W.  Dwight,  of  Dane, 

3rd  District,  Geo.  W.  Lee,  of  Grant, 

4th  District,  Geo.  Godfrey,  of  Milwaukee, 

5th  District,  E.  H.  Benton,  of  Fond  du  Lac, 

6th  District,  S.  S.  Hills,  of  Waukesha, 

7th  District,  Reuben  May,  of  Vernon, 

8th  District,  R.  C.  Lyon,  of  Wood. 

The  meeting  recommended  that  a  Convention  be  held  at 
Portage,  on  July  4th.  This  recommendation  was,  later, 
carried  out  by  the  Committee  and  a  Greenback  State  Con- 
vention was  called  to  meet  in  Portage  on  that  date.  This 
was  in  response  to  a  vigorous  demand  made  through  The 
Greenbacker,  a  new  weekly  party  organ,  published  at 
Sparta,  Monroe  County,  by  Dr.  J.  Lamborn,  who,  later, 
in  conjunction  with  Col.  George  Godfrey,  published  two 
editions,  the  second  appearing  under  a  Milwaukee  date. 

To  this  Convention  Milwaukee  sent  the  following  quite 
formidable  delegation: 

George  Burnham,  chairman,  E.  P.  Allis,  Geo.  Godfrey, 
C.  P.  Sherman,  J.  M.  Binckley,  G.  P.  Martin,  T.  H.  Judd, 
H.  J.  Hilbert,  A.  P.  Martin,  A.  M.  Helmer,  Dr.  C.  O.  Jenison, 
C.  L.  Sholes,  J.  T.  Gilbert,  I.  H.  Stearns,  C.  Simonds, 
Enoch  Chase,  J.  A.  Mallory,  E.  O.  Meyer,  W.  G.  Cutter, 
S.  A.  Harrison,  Timothy  Dore,  J.  H.  Scholl,  R.  W.  Pierce, 
John  J.  Orton,  James  Porter,  Sherburn  Bryant,  William 
Kennedy,  Geo.  B.  Brigham,  John  Bentley. 

39 


The  Commercial  Times  says  "a  majority  of  the  counties 
of  the  State  were  represented." 

The  Milwaukee  Sentinel  of  July  5,  adds  the  following 
names: 

Among  those  present  were  noticed  the  following  gentlemen:  R.  May, 
of'Viroqua;  Chas.  F.  Crosby,  Wausau;  F.  G.  Castle,  Horicon;  Geo.  E. 
Hungerford,  Stevens  Point;  F.  W.  Maffit,  Glendale;  Rolla  E.  Noyes,  D.  E. 
Morgan,  A.  W.  Storm,  Baraboo;  (Dr.)  G.  R.  Vincent,  Tomah;  P.  S.  Kil- 
binnen,  Sparta;  Hon.  Henry  Hayden,  Grand  Rapids;  R.  C.  Smith,  New 
Lisbon. 

Col.  Reuben  May,  a  Vernon  county  farmer,  was  chosen 
Chairman  of  the  Convention,  and  John  M.  Binckley  and 
George  Godfrey,  both  of  Milwaukee,  were  Secretaries. 

While  the  Committee  on  Credentials  was  engaged  in  its 
duties  Mr.  Allis  addressed  the  Convention.  His  opening 
words  explained  that  the  State  Central  Committee,  of  which 
he  was  a  member,  had  "deemed  it  proper  before  proceeding 
to  the  business  of  the  Convention  that  one  of  their  number 
should  address"  it,  "upon  subjects  pertinent"  to  the  cause 
and  the  business  of  the  gathering.  His  opening  sentences 
are  worthy  of  a  place  here,  both  for  their  literary  style  and 
the  frankness  and  independence  which  they  exemplify. 
He  said: 

There  is  one  sentence  in  our  language,  Gentlemen — that  we  are  all 
proud  to  repeat  and  which  in  its  repetition  ever  sends  a  new  thrill  of  grati- 
tude and  joy  to  our  hearts.  This  expression  is  confined  to  no  party,  no 
section,  no  sect,  no  color,  and  no  sex.  It  clothes  the  beggar  as  gorgeously 
as  the  millionaire,  and  it  is  as  bright  a  halo  upon  the  brow  of  him  of  low 
estate  as  upon  him  who  stands  upon  the  pinnacle  of  fame. 

Both  the  criminal  and  his  judge  bow  to  it  with  a  common  reverence, 
and  in  it  we  all  meet  upon  a  common  ground  and  are  actuated  by  a  common 
impulse  and  a  common  desire.  Personal  aim,  ambitions  and  feuds  are 
lost,  and  self  is  swallowed  up.  This  one  expression  common  to  us  all, 
and  expressive  of  the  real  unity  of  all  is,  "I  am  an  American  Citizen." 

There  is  another  and  a  newer  expression  in  our  language  which  may 
at  present  be  characterized  as  almost  the  converse  of  this.  Like  the  for- 
mer one,  it  knows  no  party,  sect,  color  or  sex,  and  adorns  equally  the  brow 
of  both  saint  and  sinner,  but  unlike  the  former,  it  is  not  now  a  crown  of 
glory  upon  the  head,  and  its  repetition  does  not  now  fill  us  with  joy  un- 
speakable. With  a  frown  are  we  apt  to  hear  it  spoken,  and  with  a  blush 
meet  its  application  to  ourselves.  Alas,  that  is  so,  but  the  good  and  timid 
Peter  who  denied  his  master  thrice  before  the  cock  crew,  is  but  a  prototype 
of  our  present  people.  Would  you  know  what  this  expression  is,  that  even 
in  the  absence  of  guilt  is  apt  to  mantle  the  cheek  with  shame!  This  expres- 
sion that  in  the  marts  of  men  seems  to  render  its  possession  a  legitimate 
subject  of  distrust  and  obloquy?  Already  have  you  divined  it,  and  it 
needs  not  my  tongue  to  tell  you  that  the  expression  is  "He  is  a  Greenback 
Man."  Gentlemen,  this  is  the  epithet  which  I  admit  fits  me,  and  in 

40 


which  I  hope  and  believe  you  are  all  my  earnest  companions.  We  can 
claim,  I  think  that  in  this  one  respect  at  least,  we  have  not  followed  the 
example  of  the  sainted  Peter  and  denied  our  Lord,  but  we  have  met  here 
in  the  presence  of  our  whole  noble  State,  to  renew  our  allegiance  to  the 
Master,  despised  though  he  may  be,  and  to  utter  our  open  and  solemn 
protest  against  those  who  are  crying  "Crucify  him!  Crucify  him!"  Other 
right  and  other  excuse  than  this  for  presuming  to  address  you  today  I  have 
none.  My  views  of  this  question  and  the  best  way  of  treating  it,  have 
diifered  from  many  if  not  all  of  you  in  the  past,  and  I  own  to  coming  here 
with  some  reluctance,  lest  my  course  might  have  been  wrong,  my  view 
might  unwittingly  in  some  slight  degree  have  injured  the  holy  cause.  As 
a  sufferer  from  our  accursed  financial  policy,  I  claim  to  be  one  of  the  chiefest, 
and  by  the  right  which  that  suffering  gives  me,  am  emboldened  to  speak 
truths  that  might  otherwise  seem  disloyal  to  my  fellow  sufferers. 

Before  the  Convention  had  assembled  possible  candi- 
dates for  Governor  were  discussed,  in  the  hotel  lobbies,  and 
the  names  of  Judge  James  A.  Mallory,  afterward  nominated 
by  the  Democrats;  Judge  Harlow  S.  Orton;  E.  H.  Benton, 
of  Oakfield,  Fond  du  Lac  county;  George  Burnham,  of 
Milwaukee;  and  Judge  George  W.  Gate,  of  Stevens  Point, 
were  thoroughly  canvassed.  However,  when  the  Conven- 
tion assembled,  but  one  name  was  heard  from  the  floor,  and 
Edward  P.  Allis  was  nominated,  unanimously,  by  a  rising 
vote. 

The  ticket  was  completed  as  follows:  For  Lieutenant 
Governor  E.  H.  Benton,  Fond  du  Lac  county;  Secretary  of 
State  J.  H.  Osborn,  of  Winnebago;  Treasurer,  William 
Schwartz  of  Sheboygan;  Attorney  General,  Henry  Hayden  of 
Wood;  Superintendent  of  Public  Instruction,  George  M. 
Steele  of  Outagamie. 

The  following  platform  was  adopted: 
PLATFORM. 

WHEREAS,  Throughout  our  entire  country,  labor — the  creator  of 
all  wealth — is  either  unemployed  or  denied  its  just  reward,  and  all  pro- 
ductive industries  are  paralyzed;  and 

WHEREAS,  These  results  have  been  brought  about  by  class  legis- 
lation and  the  mismanagement  of  our  National  finances;  and 

WHEREAS,  neither  the  Republican  nor  the  Democratic  Party 
proposes  any  plan  of  relief; 

We,  therefore,  DECLARE  OURSELVES  INDEPENDENT,  and 
invite  all  patriotic  men  to  join  us  in  a  movement  for  industrial  prosperity 
and  financial  reform.  We  make  the  following  declaration  of  the  principles 
of  the  Independent  Party: 

First — We  demand  the  immediate  repeal  of  the  specie  resumption 
Act  of  January  14th,  1875,  the  rescue  of  our  industries  from  the  disasters 
and  ruin  resulting  from  its  enforcement,  and  the  arrest  of  the  suicidal  and 
destructive  policy  of  contraction. 

41 


Second — We  declare  that  it  is  the  exclusive  function  of  the  Govern- 
ment to  supply  a  currency  for  the  people,  and  that  such  currency,  whether 
paper  or  metal,  should  be  issued  by,  and  bear  the  stamp  of,  the  Federal 
Government. 

Third — We  believe  that  paper  money,  issued  by  the  Government 
and  made  receivable  for  all  its  dues,  a  legal  tender  in  the  payment  of  all 
debts  public  and  private,  and  interconvertible  with  bonds  at  an  equitable 
rate  of  interest,  will  afford  the  best  circulating  medium  ever  devised. 

Fourth — We  declare  to  be  in  favor  of  the  suppression  and  prohibition 
of  all  bank  issues,  and  that  the  furnishing  of  currency  should  be  restored 
to  the  Government,  to  which  it  exclusively  belongs. 

Fifth — We  demand  the  remonetization  of  the  silver  dollar,  and  that 
it  shall  be  made  a  legal  tender  for  the  payment  of  all  debts,  including 
Government  bonds.  But  we  are  opposed  to  the  further  issue  of  interest- 
bearing  bonds  for  the  purchase  of  silver  bullion,  for  the  purposes  of  coinage. 

Sixth — We  declare  it  inconsistent  with  the  genius  and  spirit  of  popular 
government  that  any  species  of  property  should  be  exempt  from  bearing 
a  just  share  of  the  public  burdens,  and  that  Government  bonds  should  be 
taxed  precisely  as  other  property. 

Seventh — The  wealth  of  the  Nation  should  pay  its  taxes,  and  we 
demand  the  imposition  of  a  tax  upon  income,  graduated  according  to  its 
amount. 

Eighth — We  are  opposed  to  all  monopolies,  all  class  legislation,  and 
believe  it  to  be  the  duty  of  the  Government  to  exercise  a  wholesome  control 
over  all  corporate  bodies  and  to  foster  and  encourage  the  development 
of  the  agricultural,  mineral,  mechanical  and  commercial  resources  of  the 
country,  to  the  end  that  labor  may  be  fully  and  profitably  employed,  and 
the  general  welfare  be  secured  and  established. 

Gen.  Samuel  F.  Gary,  who  had  been  the  Greenback 
Candidate  for  Vice  President,  on  the  ticket  with  Peter 
Cooper,  the  year  before,  was  present  and  delivered  addresses 
both  afternoon  and  evening. 

The  Commercial  Times  in  its  report  of  the  Convention, 
said  that  as  to  previous  political  affiliations,  it  was  under- 
stood that  three  of  the  candidates  were  former  Republicans 
and  three  former  Democrats,  although  none  of  them  had 
been  pronounced  politicians,  and  several  had  been  identified 
with  Greenback  sentiment  for  several  years.  "The  person- 
nel of  the  Convention  was  of  a  high  order,"  says  the  report, 
"Intelligence  and  determination  were  characteristic  of  all 
the  proceedings."  "Judging  from  the  Convention  *  *  *  the 
Greenback  Party  as  an  element  in  Wisconsin  politics  is  not 
to  be  despised." 

Mr.  Allis,  who  was  now  fairly  before  Wisconsin  and  the 
country  as  a  prophet  of  the  new  political  faith,  on  August 
16th,  opened  the  campaign  at  the  Academy  of  Music,  in 

42 


Milwaukee,  with  a  carefully  prepared  and  comprehensive 
address.  The  Commercial  Times  says  of  this  meeting  that 
the  body  of  the  house,  then  the  largest  auditorium  in  the 
state,  was  "fairly  well  filled"  and  "not  a  few  ladies"  were 
present.  Some  of  the  Greenback  state  papers  were  more 
glowing  in  their  accounts.  George  Burnham  presided  and 
General  Gary  of  Ohio,  followed  Mr.  Allis  in  a  campaign 
address. 

Mr.  Allis's  address  which  was  prepared  with  care,  and 
read  from  manuscript,  as  was  his  habit,  was  a  comprehensive 
campaign  document,  and  as  such  its  importance  entitles 
it  to  be  quoted  at  length.  Some  of  its  more  striking  state- 
ments are  as  follows: 

The  cause  of  which  I  appear  as  one  of  the  visible  exponents,  is  as 
I  am  well  aware,  made  the  target  of  ridicule,  and  its  upholders  of  jibes; 
but  this  method  of  attack,  while  it  keeps  our  friends  out  of  sight,  does  not 
decrease  their  numbers,  nor  will  it  provoke  the  same  unmanly  weapons 
in  defense,  for  the  cause  is  higher  than  buffoonery  and  either  for  good  or 
ill  overshadows  mankind.  The  cause  I  stand  here  to  advocate,  is  to  me  a 
surpassing,  important,  and  holy  one,  and  the  deep  sense  I  have  of  trying 
to  preserve  it  in  its  beauty  and  purity  from  the  errors  of  its  indiscreet 
friends,  as  well  as  from  the  attacks  of  its  bitter  enemies,  has  had  great 
weight  in  leading  me  to  take  the  position  I  have. 

I  am  convinced,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  that  not  only  America,  but  the 
entire  civilized  world,  is  suffering  to  a  greater  or  less  extent,  from,  it  knows 
not  what,  but  which  in  reality,  is  its  want  of  knowledge  of  the  true  function 
of  debt,  and  its  relation  to  labor,  progress,  and  civilization. 

I  have  become  satisfied  that  it  is  left  for  America  to  work  out  this 
problem,  as  well  as  that  of  a  free  people's  government,  and  indeed  to  de- 
monstrate that  a  free  people's  government  cannot  long  exist,  except  in 
accord  with  that  true  relation  of  debt  to  progress. 

You  will  therefore  see  that  the  Greenback  cause  is  not  to  me  a  simple 
question  of  temporary  policy — a  question  narrow  in  its  application  and 
open  to  local  criticism.  It  is  a  question  to  me.  as  broad  as  humanity, 
and  it  seems  to  me  as  one  of  the  marked  events  in  the  history  of  the  world, 
that  the  war  waged  in  our  land,  to  strike  the  galling  fetters  of  iron  from  the 
black  man,  should  have,  as  its  concomitant  the  teaching  of  us  how  the 
depressing  fetters  of  gold  should  be  stricken  from  the  white  man. 


It  is  not  a  matter  of  doubt  or  question  that  money  of  some  kind,  is 
an  absolute  essential  to  progress  and  civilization  and  that  without  it,  the 
race  could  not  advance.  It  has  accompanied  man  in  every  step  of  his 
progress,  from  the  earliest  time,  and  without  it  must  he  have  been  a  bar- 
barian still.  The  reason  of  this  is  apparent,  when  we  remember  that 
progress  is  only  accomplished  by  gain,  and  that  gain,  to  any  extent,  only 
arises  through  association  and  exchange,  that  exchange  must  have  an 
appropriate  medium,  and  that  this  medium  is  money. 

43 


If  we  examine  the  present  springs  of  our  own  actions  we  will  find  that 
it  is  not  gold,  but  gain,  we  are  striving  for;  gain  in  wealth — gain  in  power 
— gain  in  honor — gain  in  influence — gain  in  purity — gain  in  reverence — 
gain  in  position — gain  in  culture — gain  in  knowledge — gain  in  pleasure; 
it  is  for  gain  in  something,  that  our  hearts  all  go  out,  and  just  as  that  love 
for  gain  extends  to  higher  and  holier  things,  just  so  is  the  race  elevated  and 
enobled.  Gain  in  material  things  arises  from  association  and  labor,  and 
the  disseminator  of  gain  is  exchange,  and  the  means  of  exchange  is  money. 
We  have  here  the  whole  question  of  civilization — love  of  gain  and  the  way 
to  accomplish  and  disseminate  it  by  means  of  money.  Human  govern- 
ment is  not  an  end,  but  is  one  of  the  links  in  the  great  chain  of  progress 
and  as  government  fosters  the  ability  to  create  and  disseminate  gain  among 
all  its  people,  so  has  it  neared  perfection. 

The  fact  of  the  insufficiency  of  the  precious  metals  has  long  been 
known,  and  recognized.  But  in  the  absence  of  any  known  material  sub- 
stitute, or  supplement,  and  in  the  want  of  knowledge  of  their  true  relation 
to  the  immaterial  substitute  of  debt,  the  fact  has  rather  been  tampered 
with  than  boldly  met. 

Mankind  have  seen  the  necessity  of  more  of  the  precious  metals  than 
the  world  had,  or  could  produce,  and  instead  of  boldly  meeting  this  want 
by  truth  have  permitted  the  fact  to  be  used  for  individual  profit,  and 
have  permitted  their  volume  to  be  fictitiously  increased.  An  increase  was 
certainly  needed,  but  a  fictitious  increase  was  wrong. 

One  of  these  fictitious  means  of  increasing  the  volume  of  the  precious 
metals,  in  our  country,  you  will  remember,  was  the  so  called,  "Specie  paying 
Banks." 

A  bank  was  permitted  to  issue  five  dollars,  or  more,  in  paper,  for 
every  one  dollar  in  coin  it  possessed,  promising  to  redeem  it  all  in  coin, 
on  demand. 

In  this  way,  the  volume  of  coin,  for  practical  purposes,  was  largely 
multiplied  and  such  banks  were  great  aids  to  business  and  progress;  in 
their  day  and  while  they  prospered. 

A  notable  and  successful  instance  of  this  multiplying  the  volume 
of  coin  for  practical  purposes,  occurred  in  our  city  in  its  early  history, 
and  will  be  fresh  in  the  minds  of  many  of  you.  Our  honored  fellow  citizen, 
Alexander  Mitchell,  established  here  an  insurance  company,  with  per- 
mission to  issue  bills  ad  libitum. 

The  Northwest  was  new  and  without  money,  and  its  progress  was  slow 
and  painful.  Mr.  Mitchell  was  a  man  of  known  ability,  and  unblemished 
integrity,  and  our  people  eagerly  sought  to  use  his  money  which  he  freely 
dispensed,  and  this  for  years  was  our  principal  medium  of  exchange.  The 
use  of  this  money  added  largely  to  the  early  prosperity  of  the  Northwest, 
and  for  this  benefit  we  should  ever  hold  Mr.  Mitchell  in  grateful  remem- 
brance. This  system  of  multiplying  the  volume  of  the  precious  metals, 
however,  contained  within  itself  the  seeds  of  its  own  dissolution,  in  its 
promise  to  pay  on  demand,  five  times,  or  over,  more  coin  than  it  had. 

These  banks  might  have  other  things  just  as  good  as  coin,  but  the 
promise  was  coin,  and  it  is  evident  that  their  ability  to  redeem  the  promise 
only  lasted  while  they  were  not  called  upon  to  do  so. 

44 


Had  these  banks  promised  to  pay  in  something  which  they  esteemed 
just  as  good  as  coin,  and  been  honestly  and  well  managed,  they  would 
have  been  built  upon  truth,  and  might  have  stood,  but  they  were  built 
upon  fiction,  and  no  subterfuge  or  fraud  can  ever  be  a  proper  basis  to  rest 
public  or  private  welfare  upon. 

A  notable  instance  of  this  system  of  banking,  at  this  moment  existing, 
and  a  great  power  in  the  world,  is  the  Bank  of  England.  This  bank  issues 
its  notes  and  credits,  payable  on  demand  in  coin,  to  an  extent  far  beyond 
the  coin  it  has,  and  if  by  chance,  at  any  time,  more  notes  or  credits  are 
presented  than  it  has  coin  to  redeem  them  with,  Parliament  steps  to  its 
relief,  and  decrees  that  it  need  not,  or  must  not,  so  redeem  them. 

The  Bank's  own  method  of  keeping  off  the  call  for  coin,  is  by  the 
arbitrary  advance  in  the  rate  of  interest,  which  calls  the  world  to  its  rescue, 
and  it  is  only  after  this  derangement  of  the  business  of  the  world  for 
its  benefit  has  failed,  that  Parliament  legalizes  its  broken  promise. 

No  one  doubts  the  perfect  solvency  of  the  Bank  of  England  and  that 
it  has  in  its  vaults  something  just  as  good  to  the  people  of  England  as 
gold,  but  it  certainly  is  not  gold,  and  its  only  ability  to  redeem  its  promise, 
lies  in  the  suiferance  of  the  people. 

This  fiction; — this  subterfuge,  I  maintain  is  beneath  the  spirit  of 
the  age:  and  is  behind  the  present  advance  of  civilization. 

The  truth  should  be  acknowledged,  and  openly  conformed  to,  and 
if  the  volume  of  the  precious  metals  is  not  sufficient  for  the  use  of  the 
world  as  money,  its  substitute  or  supplement  should  be  placed  on  its  own 
foundation. 

This  fiction — this  subterfuge,  I  maintain,  has  been  the  cause  of  the 
ordinary  commercial  panics,  and  convulsions  that  have,  from  time  to  time, 
swept  over  the  commercial  world  like  the  besom  of  destruction,  and  that 
these  commercial  simoons  will  continue  to  strew  the  world  with  business 
wrecks,  just  as  long  as  this  subterfuge  is  resorted  to. 

Wherever  people  have  attempted  to  supplement  the  volume  of  gold 
it  has  been  by  means  of  a  debt,  and  they  have  called  the  debt  gold,  and 
the  enduring  quality  of  the  gold,  depended  upon  the  character  of  the  debt. 
In  the  old  specie  paying  banks  they  were  required  to  have  in  their 
vaults  debts  of  states  or  corporations,  for  an  amount  equal  at  least,  to 
the  bills  issued,  so  that  the  bill,  though  it  purported  to  be  coin,  was  in 
reality  only  a  fraction  of  that  debt  the  bank  held  against  a  state  or  cor- 
poration. 

These  notes  were  accepted,  and  used  to  as  much  wider  an  extent 
than  those  of  our  own  Mr.  Mitchell,  as  the  debt  of  a  state  or  corporation 
is  higher  than  an  individual  debt. 

This  question  of  debt  is  one  of  deep  interest  and  import  and  is  closely 
entwined  with  the  human  family. 

Commencing  with  individual  obligation  of  the  slightest  form,  it  has 
been  ever  present  and  ever  increasing,  and  is,  today  the  largest  and  most 
important  structure  on  earth.  We  hear  it  said;  the  present  trouble  is 
caused  by  debt.  Why  did  you  get  in  debt?  Pay  your  debts,  etc.  Our 
debts  can  only  be  paid  in  barbarism.  Debt!  it  is  debt  everywhere.  Debt 
above  us — debt  around  us — and  debt  beneath  us. 

Our  progress  is  a  debt  to  the  past  and  our  civilization  a  debt  to  the 
future. 

45 


The  millions  piled  up  in  your  insurance  company,  is  only  a  debt. 
The  quarterly  reports  of  our  every  bank  are  all  made  up  of  debt.  The 
Inventory  of  your  every  merchant  is  largely  made  up  of  debt.  The 
savings  of  this  great  people,  for  the  last  century,  piled  up  by  millions  in 
savings  banks,  are  all  debts.  The  rich  man  counts  his  thousands  in  debts, 
and  the  poor  man  receives  his  days  wages  in  debt.  The  widow  drops  her 
mite  in  a  debt,  and  robbers  burst  vaults  and  carry  off  hundreds  of  thousands, 
in  debts.  What  is  our  beautiful  Plankinton  House,  but  a  debt  to  the 
railroads,  the  merchants  and  manufacturers  of  our  city.  What  is  our 
magnificent  system  of  railroads,  itself,  but  a  debt  to  the  farm,  the  shop, 
the  brain  and  sinews  of  the  people?  What  is  that  splendid  building  being 
erected  in  our  midst,  but  a  debt  to  you  and  to  me  who  make  our  daily 
and  hourly  walk  beside  its  doors.  Were  it  erected  an  hour  from  these  haunts, 
it  would  not  be  worth  the  rough  material  composing  it.  It  is  debt,  and 
nothing  but  debt  and  obligation,  of  which  we  are  made  up  physically, 
morally  and  commercially.  It  is  debt  everywhere,  and  in  everything 
and  its  true  measure  is  not  numbers,  but  wisdom. 

To  illustrate  the  prevalent  and  indeed  the  perfect  universality  of  debt, 
I  will  take  a  familiar  instance  and  call  your  attention  to  one  of  our  home 
institutions  that  is  a  model  of  good  management  and  whose  solvency  under 
all  circumstances  is  unquestioned.  I  take  it  simply  as  an  illustration 
of  the  all  prevailing  presence  of  debt,  in  a  quarter  where  we  are  apt  to  think 
other  than  ordinary  rules  previal. 

I  clip  from  a  paper  the  report  of  the  First  National  Bank,  of  this 
city,  on  the  22nd  of  June,  1877,  and  think  our  friend  Mr.  Camp,  can  be 
complimented,  on  the  good  condition  of  his  institution.  He  has  here  a 
list  of  liabilities,  that  is,  debts  the  bank  owes,  which  amounts  to  one  and  a 
half  millions  of  dollars.  This  is  all  a  debt  that  the  Bank  owes  to  somebody. 

Now,  to  counter-balance  this  debt,  is  a  table  of  resources — that  is 
the  things  he  has  got  on  hand  with  which  to  pay  these  liabilities,  that  is, 
a  million  and  a  half  of  dollars.  Let  us  see  what  these  resources  are. 

Loans,  discounts,  etc.,  $854,000 — a  debt  against  their  customers. 
U.  S.  Bonds,  $275,000 — a  debt  against  the  government.  Other  stocks, 
bonds  and  mortgages,  $35,000 — a  debt  against  somebody  else.  Due  from 
reserve  agents,  $125,000 — a  debt  against  somebody  else.  Due  from  banks 
and  bankers,  $36,000— debt  against  somebody  else.  Real  Estate,  $40,000 
— there  we  have  something  tangible,  but  wait  a  little.  That  is  just  a  place 
to  keep  those  debts  in,  and  if  there  were  no  debts  in  the  world,  it  would  be 
good  for  nothing,  so  that  is  a  debt  also — but  even  if  there  were  debts  and 
he  had  none  of  them  to  keep,  he  would  trade  the  place  off  for  debt  against 
somebody  so  that  is,  in  reality,  a  debt  also.  Then  comes  checks,  taxes, 
etc.— $33,000— all  debts.  Bills  of  other  banks— $1,000— a  debt  against 
somebody  else.  Greenbacks — $175,000 — a  debt  against  you  and  me  and 
the  future,  which  the  government  has  guaranteed  and  it  is  a  good  one — 
better  than  gold.  As  a  final  item,  we  have  specie — including  treasury- 
gold  certificates— $12,600.  Now,  in  this  item,  Mr.  Camp,  has  shown  his 
usual  good  management,  and  has  got  far  more  than  his  share  of  all  the 
specie  there  is.  $12,000  in  a  million  and  a  half  is  a  tremendous  excess  in 
his  favor,  but  a  part  of  this  is  treasury  certificates;  what  part  we  don't 
know,  probably  a  large  part,  but  it  is  immaterial,  for  they  are  jsut  as  good 
as  specie.  Now,  these  gold  certificates  are  a  sort  .of  government  play- 
gold;  not  real  gold — for  the  gold  is  not  necessarily  there.  It  is  a  piece  of 
paper,  with  the  word  "gold"  stamped  on  it  in  gilt,  and  they  call  it  gold, 
but  it  is  only  a  debt. 

46 


This  reduces  the  resources,  in  other  than  debt,  to  some  fractional 
part  of  $12,000,  which  is  probably  gold,  since  silver  is  not  now  specie, 
I  think,  at  all  events,  it  is  not  money. 

Now  this  small  amount  of  specie,  so  far  as  it  is  made  of  the  metal 
gold,  might  just  as  well  be  an  equal  value  of  pig-iron,  but  the  bank  holds 
it  for  its  greenback  quality  of  debt,  and  as  such,  it  is  a  first-class  bank  asset, 
but  nevertheless  is  simply  a  debt,  and  this  makes  the  entire  resources  debts. 

It  is  a  balance  of  debts,  and  the  business  of  the  bank  is  to  keep  that 
poise  of  debts  good  and  even. 

The  highest  form  of  physical  debt,  and  consequently  of  value,  now 
known,  is  that  of  a  Nation  to  its  own  people.  An  individual,  or  corpor- 
ation may  be  unwilling  to  pay  a  debt  to  his  neighbor,  or  his  creditor, — a 
State  may  fail  to  pay  its  debt  to  a  foreign  State,  and  the  foreign  State 
must  be  the  loser; — but  a  Nation's  debt  to  its  own  people  cannot  fail.  The 
people  have  had  the  value  of  the  debt,  and  they  cannot  be  deprived  of  it, 
and  the  only  question  is,  the  just  distribution  of  its  benefits  and  burdens, 
which  is  purely  a  question  of  method,  not  of  value. 

A  National  Debt  to  its  own  people,  therefore,  is  the  refinement  of  debt, 
— the  very  height  of  value,  it  cannot  be  lost. 

The  Bank  of  England,  to-day,  holds  a  debt  against  the  British  Nation, 
for  the  excess  of  its  bills,  over  the  coin  which  it  has,  and  the  only  weakness 
of  those  bills  to  the  British  people  is  that  they  have  a  guardian  in  the  Bank 
of  England  who  promises  what  he  has  not  got,  and  charges  for  it.  The 
National  Banks  of  our  own  time  and  country,  hold  the  debt  of  our  Nation 
for  the  bills  they  issue,  and  their  only  weakness  is  that  they  promise  green- 
backs, which  they  have  not  got,  and  charge  us  for  it. 

If  the  Nation's  debt,  which  is  owned  by  the  National  Banks,  as  well 
as  the  rest  of  it,  bore  an  interest  not  as  high  as  the  average  increase  of 
National  wealth,  and  was  interconvertible  at  will  with  greenbacks  only, 
then  would  those  banks  be  founded  upon  just,  equitable  and  safe  principles, 
and  be  as  legitimate,  and  as  great  aids  to  advance  as  is  your  business,  or 
mine,  and,  I  believe  that  until  that  is  done,  or  something  equivalent,  there 
will  never  again  be  true,  and  permanent  prosperity  in  our  land,  either  to 
banking  or  any  other  business. 

The  old  specie-paying  banks,  the  Bank  of  England,  and  our  present 
National  Banks,  having  the  feature  of  compulsory  demand  payment  in 
something  they  have  not  got,  though  they  may  have  something  just  as 
good,  are  frauds  to  that  extent  and  so  long  as  this  feature  exists,  they  will 
be  fruitful  sources  of  the  commercial  disasters  that  have  marked  the  road 
since  the  race  passed  beyond  the  power  of  the  precious  metals  to  supply 
its  want  of  money. 

It  is  this  feature  of  compulsory  payment,  on  demand,  in  gold,  which 
we  have  not  got,  and  cannot  get,  that  is  now  sought  to  be  resorted,  and 
perpetuated,  in  the  specie-redemption  act,  which  is  to  go  into  effect  on 
the  1st  of  January,  1879,  or  which  I  should  rather  say,  is  still  in  force; 
for  it  can  never  go  into  effect  upon  a  bankrupt  nation,  and  a  people  rapidly 
traveling  backward  in  the  scale  of  civilization  and  progress. 

We  can  also  safely  affirm  that  during  the  present  six  months  the 
downward  progress,  unless  arrested  by  the  repeal  of  existing  laws,  will  be 
equally  rapid  and  that  the  first  of  January  1878,  will  find  us  that  much 
nearer  universal  ruin.  It  is  true,  we  have  in  the  Northwest  the  aid  of  a 
bounteous  harvest,  but  its  effect  will  be  local  and  trifling,  and  can  no  more 
stay  the  dread  progress  than  a  rush  the  torrent  of  the  Nile.  Not  only 

47 


is  labor  a  sufferer  beyond  computation,  but  capital  itself,  which  is,  and 
should  be,  the  great  aid  and  abettor  of  labor  is,  apparently  unknown  to 
itself,  fearfully  endangered  by  this  suicidal  policy. 

The  press  and  the  politicians  of  the  old  parties  were,  by 
this  time,  thoroughly  aroused  to  the  importance  and  dangers 
of  a  Greenback  campaign,  led  by  Mr.  Allis  and  supported  by 
the  class  of  men  that  had  nominated  him,  so  they  pointed 
all  the  heaviest  campaign  guns  his  way. 

An  episode  of  the  campaign  that  excited  a  great  deal  of 
comment  in  Wisconsin  and  elsewhere,  was  the  result  of  an 
invitation  to  Mr.  Allis,  from  the  Secretary  of  the  American 
Banker's  Association,  to  address  the  Annual  Meeting  of  this 
Association,  held  in  New  York  City,  September  12th,  13th 
and  14th,  1877. 

The  invitation,  from  James  Buell,  President  of  The 
Importers  and  Trader's  National  Bank,  of  New  York, 
Secretary  of  the  Association,  is  dated  Aug.  2,  1877.  It  was, 
evidently,  the  result  of  correspondence  with  Mr.  Allis, 
touching  the  currency  question,  for  Mr.  Buell,  says,  in  part: 

Your  esteemed  favor  under  date  of  the  30th  ult.,  is  received,  also  your 
letter  to  our  Association.  The  latter  I  have  read  with  much  care  and 
consideration. 

Our  Association  is  to  hold  a  Convention  on  the  12, 13  and  14th,  of  Sept. 
next,  at  which  time — presuming  you  to  be  a  director  of  one  of  the  banks  in 
Milwaukee,  consequently  to  have  a  right  to  present  such  financial  views 
as  you  may  entertain,  to  that  body, — we  now  invite  you  to  prepare,  and 
discuss  the  matter  embraced  in  your  communication  to  our  Association, 
above  alluded  to,  at  that  time. 

Mr.  Allis  prepared  an  address  and  went  to  New  York  to 
deliver  it,  but  was  allowed  no  opportunity.  As  his  going 
had  been  announced  in  advance,  he  felt  obliged  to  write  a 
letter,  which  was  published,  explaining  that  the  officials  of 
the  Association  were  very  courteous  to  him  personally,  but 
found  it  convenient  to  assign  no  place  to  him  upon  the 
program.  They  did,  finally,  invite  him  to  submit  his 
address,  promising  that  it  should  be  entered  upon  the 
minutes  and  published  in  the  report  of  proceedings.  The 
only  notice  taken  of  it,  notwithstanding  this  promise,  was  a 
statement  from  the  Secretary  to  the  meeting  that  a  number 
of  papers  had  been  received  "that  we  would  like  to  read  if 
we  had  time,"  among  them  a  "very  elaborate  and  interesting 
address  from  Mr.  E.  P.  Allis,  of  Wisconsin,  discussing  the 
Greenback  Question."  A  motion  was  adopted  that  "all  be 
referred  to  the  Council  for  their  consideration,  and  the 

48 


publication  of  such  portions  of  them  as  they  see  fit."  That 
brief  mention  was  the  only  publicity  ever  given  the  paper 
by  that  Association. 

The  address,  however,  made  a  most  useful  campaign 
document  for  the  Greenbackers.  It  was  widely  published, 
and  was  commented  upon  at  length  in  the  newspapers.  It 
was  also  printed  in  document  form.  The  Boston  Pilot 
published  it  entire,  and  the  Boston  Daily  Globe,  in  a  half 
column  editorial,  spoke  of  it  as  "by  far  the  most  thoughtful 
and  rational  contribution  to  that  side  of  the  question  which 
we  have  yet  seen." 

This  address  very  naturally  became  one  of  the  most 
effective  Greenback  documents  of  the  campaign,  through- 
out the  country.  The  Greenback  papers  rang  with  it, 
carefully  emphasizing  the  apparent  discourtesy  shown  Mr. 
Allis.  They  also  made  much  of  some  foolish  letters  sent  to 
the  press  by  Secretary  Buell  of  the  American  Banker's 
Association,  urging  the  editorial  use  of  a  paragraph  which  he 
furnished,  charging  that  the  Greenbackers  had  offered  to 
"sell  out  to  the  Democrats."  These  letters  were  so  stupid 
and  clumsy  as  to  be  an  effective  boomerang,  and  the  Green- 
backers  were  not  slow  to  make  the  most  of  them  to  their 
own  advantage. 

One  of  the  amusing  cases  of  Republican  confusion,  as  a 
result  of  the  force  of  Mr.  Rublee's  iron  hand  and  "town 
meeting"  in  turning  the  Republican  State  Platform  upside 
down,  was  developed  in  United  States  Senator  Timothy  O. 
Howe,  whose  record  was,  on  the  whole,  that  of  an  excellent 
and  most  creditable  Senator.  But  he  was,  at  this  time, 
confronted  by  a  campaign  for  his  own  re-election,  in  the 
approaching  winter  of  1878,  and  the  State  Senators  to  be 
elected  in  1877  would  help  to  elect  his  successor.  Senator 
Howe  spoke  in  Madison,  Oct.  11,  and  devoted  much  time  to 
the  arguments  of  Mr.  Allis.  His  speech  was  heralded  as  a 
"masterly"  address.  On  the  22nd  of  the  same  month  Mr. 
Allis  spoke  in  Madison  and  the  report,  in  the  Milwaukee 
Sentinel,  shows  that  he  had  inherited  some  of  the  dry  humor 
of  his  New  England  forbears.  He  said: 

The  Honorable  Senator,  after  a  personal  compliment  to  myself  and 
Prof.  Steele,  our  able  candidate  for  Superintendent  of  Public  Instruction, 
remarks  that  in  the  attitude  we  have  assumed  he  could  not  vote  for  us  if 
every  person  in  the  State  did  so.  What  is  the  attitude  we  have  assumed 
that  renders  us  so  obnoxious?  We  have  not  changed  our  attitude  since 
the  Republican  Convention  was  held  in  this  city,  and  the  Honorable  Senator 
said  to  more  than  one  of  the  Delegates  to  the  Convention  that  he  thought 

49 


these  same  two  persons,  for  whom  he  now  says  he  could  not  vote,  should 
be  nominated  on  the  Republican  Ticket  for  the  same  positions,  by  the  Re- 
publicans. Could  the  Honorable  Senator  have  intended  by  this  act,  if 
accomplished,  to  have  transferred  our  obnoxiousness  to  the  Republican 
Party  and  thus  defeat  it?  or  did  he  think  the  Republican  Party  was  so 
much  worse  than  we  were  that  our  connection  with  it  would  have  helped 
it  some? 

Referring  to  this  matter  editorially,  a  week  later,  evi- 
dently because  Senator  Howe  had  not  denied  Mr.  Allis's 
charge,  the  Milwaukee  Sentinel  said  that  Senator  Howe 
"thought  more  of  capturing  the  Greenback  vote  for  State 
Senators  *  *  *  *  than  of  the  principles  of  the  Republican 
Party." 

The  campaign  was  exciting.  Mr.  Allis  visited  every 
part  of  the  State  and  attracted  fair  sized  and  very  respectable 
audiences.  There  were  several  other  local  Greenback 
speakers  on  the  stump,  together  with  General  Gary  and 
others  of  prominence  from  outside  the  State,  among  them 
Robert  Schilling,  then  of  Cleveland,  Ohio,  who  had  made  a 
local  reputation,  there,  as  a  Union  Labor  agitator  and 
speaker.  To  offset  him  and  the  other  outsiders,  the  Repub- 
licans imported  some  of  their  big  guns.  Thomas  M.  Nichol,  a 
champion  long  endurance  talker,  from  Kansas,  who  had 
been  engaged  in  Ohio  the  previous  year,  where  the  contest 
was  mainly  over  the  currency  question,  was  brought  to 
Wisconsin  and  a  joint  debate  between  him  and  Schilling  was 
one  of  the  features  of  the  campaign. 

When  the  votes  were  counted,  the  Greenbackers  were 
very  generally  disappointed.  They  had  certainly  had  en- 
couragement to  believe  there  was  hope  for  the  election  of 
Mr.  Allis,  but  the  party  habit  was  too  strong  for  a  successful 
diversion,  even  though  a  great  number  of  Republicans 
thought  Mr.  Allis  "more  than  half  right,"  as  Mr.  Thompson's 
History  admits. 

The  Wisconsin  Greenbacker  of  November  10,  reflected 
the  feelings  of  those  who  had  really  believed  Greenback 
success  in  sight.  The  paper  announced  its  suspension  and 
although  calling  the  election  "A  grand  victory,"  it  deplored 
the  fact  that  "overweening  partisanship"  had  led  to  a 
"three-cornered  duel"  and  urged  Greenbackers  to  "come  up 
solid"  thereafter. 

Mr.  Allis  was  not  cast  down  by  the  result  as  was  demon- 
strated in  a  letter  "To  the  Greenback  Voters  of  Wisconsin," 
on  November  10,  in  which  he  says  that  the  result  justified 

50 


his  "belief  that  the  entire  hard  money  sentiment  *  *  *  is 
contained  in  a  fraction  of  the  Republican  vote  just  recorded, 
and  that  the  Greenback  Party  is  *  *  *  the  dominant  one  in 
Wisconsin." 

His  letter  says: 

This  grand  uprising  in  a  few  weeks,  is  not  a  political  movement  in 
the  ordinary  acceptation  of  that  term — as  a  struggle  for  power  and  peace — 
but  is  a  stern  protest  of  thousands  of  honest  and  injured  men  against  the 
unjust  legislation  that  has  brought  and  keeps  them  in  bankruptcy,  in 
idleness  and  in  want,  is  the  protest  of  a  republican  form  of  government 
against  a  monarchical  system  of  finance,  and  is,  may  we  hope,  the  voice  of 
doom  to  this  enforced  season  of  unthrift  and  disaster.  While  calling 
upon  you  not  to  relax  effort  to  steadily  and  rapidly  increase  the  members 
and  perfect  our  organization,  I  wish  to  impress  upon  you  the  necessity 
of  fortitude  and  indurance  to  the  end.  A  continuance  of  the  past  financial 
policy,  which  is  not  unlikely,  will  as  surely  increase  disaster  and  suffering 
in  the  future,  as  cause  produces  effect,  and  we  must  be  prepared  to  calmly 
and  peacefully  meet  it,  until  the  cause  is  removed  in  a  legitimate  manner. 
Remember  if  we  suffer,  it  is  from  our  own  acts,  while  we  have  the  ballot, 
and  let  no  act  of  outlawry  or  riot  stain  the  fair  escutcheon  of  Wisconsin. 
Patiently  bide  your  time,  for  it  is  surely  coming. 

NEWSPAPER  COMMENT. 

Some  idea  of  the  general  attitude  of  the  newspapers  of 
the  state  toward  Mr.  Allis  and  Greenbackism  may  be  got 
from  the  following  quotations: 

The  Milwaukee  Daily  News,  (Democrat),  said,  July  8,  upon  printing 
the  Portage  speech  is  full;  "It  is  due  to  say  that  Mr.  Allis's  views  are  very 
conservative  and  are  not  based  at  all  upon  a  partial  repudiation  of  the 
public  debt,  and  business  contracts.  His  argument  is  the  most  plausible 
that  can  be  made  on  that  side  of  the  question." 

The  Milwaukee  Commercial  Times,  (Democrat)  closing  a  column 
editorial  on  "E.  P.  Allis,"  August  1st,  says: 

"We  do  not  wish  to  be  understood  as  questioning  the  personal  character 
of  Mr.  Allis.  He  has  lived  a  blameless  life,  many  years  in  this  community 
*  *  *  *  a  man  of  culture,  as  well  as  of  unblemished  character.  A  gentlemen 
of  kindly  manners,  of  pleasant  temper,  of  irreproachable  walk  and  speech, 
he  would  personally  be  a  great  improvement  on  some  of  our  recent  Governors. " 

The  Milwaukee  Sentinel,  (Republican)  in  an  editorial  on  the^Academy 
of  Music  Speech,  said  "*  *  *  his  standing  as  a  prominent  business  man 
and  the  fact  that  many  people  who  have  given  little  thought  to  monetary 
science  may  be  led  away  by  his  wild  unreason,  makes  it  incumbent  upon  us 
to  call  attention  to  a  few  of  the  more  glaring  fallacies  uttered  by  him  on 
that  occassion.  While  doing  this,  we  have  no  desire  to  reflect  upon  his 
honesty  of  purpose." 

The  Wisconsin  Greenbacker,  Aug.  18,  said,  in  the  course  of  an  an- 
nouncement that  Mr.  Allis  would  speak  at  the  Academy:  "Mr.  Allis  is 
preeminently  a  man  of  the  people.  He  is  not,  nor  ever  has  been,  a  poli- 
tician, *  *  *  He  is  modest  and  unobstrusive  almost  to  a  fault.  Although 
the  head  of  one  of  the  largest  manufacturing  industries  of  this  city  or 
state,  he  terms  his  vast  works,  employing  hundreds  of  men,  'the  shop'." 

51 


The  Eau  Claire  Free  Press,  (Republican)  Sept.  19:  "Mr.  Allis  is  the 
most  conservative  of  Greenback  men,  believing  that  a  greenback  should 
be  worth  a  dollar,  and  utterly  opposed  to  inflation." 

La  Crosse  Liberal  Democrat,  (Democrat)  ^Sept.  21 :  *'Mr.  Allis  is  a 
gentleman  of  such  irreproachable  private  character  and  such  a  prominent 
and  successful  business  man,  and  withal  a  Republican  of  such  long  standing 
and  reputation,  that  we  do  not  wonder  that  William  E.  Smith,  the  regular 
Republican  nominee,  appears  to  a  disadvantage  in  contrast,  among  members 
of  the  party.  It  is  evident  from  the  Republican  press  of  the  State,  that 
Mr.  Allis's  efforts  are  looked  upon  with  much  jealousy  on  that  account." 

The  Neenah  Gazette,  (Republican)  Sept.  22:  "It  is  well  known  at 
least  to  the  readers  of  this  paper,  that  we  did  what  we  could  to  have  the 
Republican  State  Convention,  at  least  in  a  measure,  identify  our  party 
with  the  fast  growing  greenback  sentiment,  either  by  nominating  Mr. 
Allis  of  Milwaukee,  and  Dr.  Steele  of  Appleton,  or  by  giving  us  a  platform 
which  should  give  Republican  Greenback  Men  the  hope  that  their  party 
would  be  the  one  to  lead  off  in  this  movement  in  the  interest  of  the  people. 
In  this  we  were  disappointed,  as  were  hundreds  of  our  friends." 

The  Milwaukee  Sentinel,  (Republican):  "*  *  *  we  do  believe  Mr.  Allis 
would  do  himself  better  service  and  his  cause  no  injury  by  withdrawing. 
*  *  *  He  is  too  good  a  man  to  be  knocked  over  simply  to  aid  the  Democratic 
Party." 

The  Northwestern  Miller,  (Greenback)  La  Crosse,  August:  "The 
fact  that  this  speech  (at  Portage),  was  made  by  Mr.  Allis  expressly  to 
define  his  position;  that  it  was  made  before  his  nomination;  that  he  has 
always  been  looked  upon  as  the  most  conservative  man  in  this  movement; 
and  that  his  endorsement  by  the  Convention  was  without  one  dissenting 
voice,  fairly  entitle  it  to  be  considered  as  the  honest  outspoken  sentiment 
of  the  great  mass  of  the  Greenback  Party  in  this  State." 

The  Oshkosh  Northwestern,  (Republican)  Oct.  4:  "Mr.  Allis  is  a  gentle- 
man, honest  in  his  convictions,  has  a  reason  for  what  he  says,  and  is  entirely 
a  different  man,  from  Cary  and  Harper.  He  is  no  communist  nor  demagogue. 
We  do  not  think  he  differs  greatly  in  his  principles  from  a  majority  of  the 
Republicans  in  this  State  of  whom  he  has  always  been  one." 

The  Whitewater  Register,  (Republican)  Oct.  25:  "Mr.  Allis  is  evi- 
dently a  man  thoroughly  honest  and  of  the  best  intentions,  and  we  have  a 
high  respect  for  his  character." 


52 


Wisconsin's  Candidate  for  President  of  the 
United  States 


CHAPTER  Six. 


WHILE  the  Greenback  State  Ticket  had  met  with 
defeat,  the  campaign  results  of  1877  justified 
much  of  the  self-gratulation  of  the  Greenback 
Party.  The  old  politicians  had  been  so  im- 
pressed that  many  of  them  sought  safety  and  political  life 
insurance  by  subscribing  to  the  articles  of  the  new  political 
faith.  Thus,  George  H.  Paul  of  Milwaukee,  a  former  Chair- 
man of  the  Democratic  State  Central  Committee,  chosen 
to  the  State  Senate,  subscribed  himself  "Democrat  and 
Greenbacker"  and  A.  R.  Barrows,  of  Chippewa  Falls,  a 
former  Republican,  chosen  Speaker  of  the  Assembly,  was 
put  down  as  an  "Independent  Greenbacker."  Four  other 
Assemblymen  were  recorded  as  Independent  Greenbackers; 
seven  called  themselves  Greenbackers;  one,  James  Meehan, 
was  put  down  as  a  "Greenback  Democrat,"  and  there 
were,  beside,  Independent,  Liberal,  Liberal  Republican, 
and  Socialist  representatives  in  that  Legislature.  There 
had  been  over  fifty  legislative  candidates  in  the  field  who 
had  endorsed  Greenbackism  or  were  out-and-out  Greenback 
Party  men.  That  demoralization  was  consequently  great, 
in  the  hitherto  invincible  Republican  Party,  was  not  at  all 
surprising. 

This  campaign  was  accepted  by  the  Greenback  leaders 
as  evidence  that  with  better  organization,  which,  it  was 
expected  these  results  would  encourage,  the  Greenback 
Party  would,  by  another  presidential  election,  be  very  for- 
midable nationally.  Results  in  other  states  were  even  more 
decisive  than  in  Wisconsin,  and  Greenbackers  were  in  hope- 
ful mood,  everywhere. 

53 


On  February  22,  1878,  a  Convention,  attended  by  over 
800  delegates,  from  twenty-eight  states,  was  held  at  Toledo, 
Ohio,  to  which  all  the  various  organizations  of  labor  and 
politics,  opposed  to  the  Republican  resumption  idea,  were 
invited,  to  devise  ways  to  make  common  cause  against  the 
old  parties.  Edward  P.  Allis  and  Elliot  H.  Benton,  were 
Delegates-at-Large  from  Wisconsin.  The  Executive  Com- 
mittee of  the  Greenback  Party  of  Wisconsin,  and  the  Speaker 
and  thirteen  Greenback  members  of  the  Wisconsin  Assembly, 
united  in  a  letter  to  the  President  of  the  Convention  request- 
ing that  Mr.  Allis  be  invited  to  address  it.  The  members 
of  the  Legislature  in  this  letter  also  expressed  their  appre- 
ciation of  the  ability  and  merits  of  Mr.  Allis,  and  spoke 
of  his  "purity,  unselfish  patriotism  and  prudent  wisdom 
in  council." 

This  speech  was  delivered  and  widely  published,  re- 
ceiving favorable  notice,  from  many  directions,  throughout 
the  entire  country. 

A  new  party  was  organized  at  Toledo,  the  name 
"National"  chosen,  and  a  platform  adopted  which  went 
further  than  the  Greenbackers  had  hitherto  gone  into 
questions  which  represented  "the  cause  of  labor,"  that  had 
loomed  up  large  after  the  serious  railway  strikes  of  1877,  and 
while  the  word  "Labor"  was  not  officially  incorporated  in 
the  name  of  the  new  party,  it  was  commonly  referred  to  as 
the  "National  or  Greenback-Labor  Party." 

At  Toledo,  Mr.  Allis  was  chosen  a  member  of  the  National 
Executive  Committee  for  Wisconsin,  and  came  home  to  do 
his  best  with  tongue,  pen,  and  purse,  and  characteristic 
energy,  for  the  principles  which  he  believed  to  be  vital  to 
the  welfare  of  the  country.  Immediately  the  following 
letter  was  issued,  together  with  the  new  "National  Party" 
Platform,  and  its  endorsement  by  the  Wisconsin  State 
Central  Committee,  was  a  part  of  the  document. 

Milwaukee,  February  24th,  1878. 

To  the  State  Central  Committee  of  the  Greenback  Party  of  Wisconsin : 
Gentlemen: — 

Having  been  chosen  by  the  Executive  Committee  of  your  body,  in 
connection  with  E.  H.  Benton,  of  Oakfield,  Wis.,  to  represent  the  State 
at  Large,  in  the  Toledo  Convention,  and  also  having  been  especially  re- 
quested by  the  Greenback  members  of  the  Legislature  to  present  the 
attitude  of  Wisconsin  on  this  question,  to  that  Convention,  it  is  deemed 
proper  that  I  should  announce  to  your  body  the  impression  made  by  that 
Convention  and  its  acts  upon  your  entire  delegation  from  Wisconsin. 

54 


The  place  of  holding  the  Convention,  Toledo,  Ohio,  was  where  the  com- 
bined Labor  and  Greenback  element  overcame  both  the  old  parties  in  the 
last  fall  elections,  and  the  Convention  was  for  the  purpose  of  nationalizing 
tHs~~conTbtnatton  that  had  previously  been  scattered  and  local.  The 
fears  entertained  by  many,  and  myself  among  the  number,  that  the  Con- 
vention would  be  controlled  by  the  extreme  wing  of  our  people,  and  that 
sentiments  of  repudiation,  or  perhaps  violence,  would  prevail,  were  un- 
founded and  unjust.  The  elements  gathered  there  were  of  all  phases  of 
belief,  and  from  all  parties  and  organizations,  conservative,  as  well  as 
radical,  but  were  thoughtful,  earnest  and  consistent  men,  with  apparently 
but  one  end  in  view,  viz:  to  unite  all  the  scattered  elements  of  opposition 
to  the  present  financial  management  of  our  Government,  upon  a  fair,  just 
and  honorable  basis;  and  upon  this  basis  to  earnestly  work  for  speedy 
reform. 

The  harmonious  fusion  of  every  shade  of  sentiment  was  complete 
and  the  Convention  ended  with  apparently  no  point  of  contention  between 
them,  and  with  the  earnest  determination  to  go  to  their  various  homes  and 
zealously  strive  for  the  speedy  triumph  of  the  principles  there  enunciated. 

Whatever  differences  of  opinion  existed  as  to  the  name  or  minor 
details  of  the  new  organization,  were  met  in  a  spirit  of  mutual  concession, 
and  the  annexed  platform  was  the  unanimous  result.  This  Convention 
and  its  actions  remove  entirely  the  fear  that  the  movement  would  be  the 
creature  of  either  of  the  old  parties,  and  now,  whether  destined  for  success 
or  defeat,  stands  upon  its  own  merits.  For  my  own  part  I  cannot  see  why 
every  man  who  holds  our  general  views,  and  loves  his  country  better 
than  party,  should  not  at  once  rally  around  this  standard.  The  basis  of 
the  old  Republican  Party,  human  rights,  are  here  enunciated  anew;  and 
the  foundation  stone  of  the  old  Democratic  Party,  a  people's  government, 
is  here  crystalized.  Previous  to  the  knowledge  of  what  the  platform 
would  be,  I  pledged  the  Convention  that  Wisconsin  would  largely  endorse 
conservative  Greenbackism,  and  I  see  no  reason  why  that  endorsement 
should  not  center  upon  this  organization  and  platform. 

Subject,  therefore,  to  your  superior  wisdom,  I  raise  my  voice  for  the 
"NATIONAL"  Party. 

Yours  respectfully, 

EDWARD  P.  ALLIS. 

No  better  evidence  is  necessary  of  the  wide  demoraliza- 
tion of  the  Wisconsin  Republicans,  at  that  time,  than  the 
following  set  of  resolutions,  adopted  by  the  Legislature  of 
1878: 

RESOLVED,  by  the  Assembly,  the  Senate  concurring,  That  every  con- 
sideration of  public  policy  demands  the  immediate  restoration  of  the  silver 
dollar  to  its  former  rank,  as  a  legal  tender  for  all  debts,  public  and  private, 
as  it  existed  prior  to  February  12,  1873,  with  detriment  to  no  one,  but  of 
acknowledged  benefit  to  the  whole  people,  and  our  Senators  in  Congress 
are  hereby  instructed,  and  our  Representatives  in  Congress  are  requested, 
to  use  all  proper  and  honorable  means  to  secure  the  passing  of  a  bill  so 
restoring  the  law. 

RESOLVED,  That  all  indebtedness,  public  or  private,  created  prior 
to  July  14th,  1870,  and  which  was  by  its  terms  payable  in  coin,  is  payable 
either  in  gold  or  silver  coin,  at  option,  and  all  government  bonds  issued 
since  July  14th,  1870,  are  payable  as  recited  on  the  face  of  the  bonds, 

55 


to-wit,:  "This  bond  is  issued  in  accordance  with  the  provisions  of  an  act 
of  congress,  entitled,  'An  Act  to  authorize  the  refunding  of  the  National 
Debt,'  approved  July  14th,  1870,  amended  by  an  Act,  approved  January 
20th,  1871,  and  is  redeemable  at  the  pleasure  of  the  United  States  after 
the  first  day  of  September,  A.  D.  1891,  in  coin  of  the  standard  value  of 
the  United  States  on  said  July  14th,  1870,  with  interest  in  such  coin  from 
the  day  of  date  thereof,"  etc. 

RESOLVED,  That  where  the  word  "coin"  is  thus  used,  it  meant 
gold  and  silver  coin;  a  dollar  of  gold  being  25.8  grains,  and  a  silver  dollar 
412.5  grains,  both  nine-tenths  fine,  and  it  is  the  right  of  the  people  to 
discharge  their  obligations  in  the  exact  manner  specified,  in  all  contracts 
entered  into. 

RESOLVED,  That  if  after  the  full  and  unconditional  restoration  of 
the  law  relating  to  the  silver  dollar,  it  should  be  found  there  was  any  con- 
siderable difference  between  the  value  of  dollars  in  gold  and  silver,  we 
should  regard  it  as  a  wise  policy  to  re-adjust  the  weight  of  the  two  coins, 
either  by  increasing  the  weight  of  silver,  or  decreasing  the  weight  of  gold, 
as  proposed  by  the  Honorable  John  Sherman  in  1868,  or  both,  so  as  to 
secure  their  harmonious  circulation  as  the  money  of  account  of  the  United 
States;  but  in  the  opinion  of  this  Legislature,  it  will  be  impossible  to  deter- 
mine their  relative  value,  until  the  two  metals  shall  have  been  placed 
upon  an  equal  footing,  by  a  restoration  of  the  law,  in  relation  to  the  silver 
dollar,  as  it  stood  prior  to  February  12th,  1873. 

Wisconsin  held  no  election  for  State  officers  in  1878,  but 
in  the  congressional  elections  the  Greenbackers  found  a  field 
for  activity  and  their  work  spread  genuine  and  great  anxiety 
among  the  Wisconsin  members  of  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives who  were  seeking  re-election.  There  were  straight 
Greenback  candidates  nominated  in  four  Wisconsin  dis- 
tricts, and  there  was  fusion  with  the  Democrats  in  three  oth- 
ers. In  but  one  district  were  they  unrepresented.  The 
candidates  who  got  the  Greenback  vote,  received,  in  all, 
57,530  of  the  206,318  votes  polled  in  the  state  for  congress- 
men, but  they  were  all  unsuccessful. 

In  a  published  address  "To  the  People  of  Wisconsin,"  in 
the  December  following  the  election  of  1878,  Mr.  Allis 
stated  that  the  party  had  grown,  in  Wisconsin,  "from  1500 
in  1876  to  30,000  in  1878,"  and  the  National  Chairman 
claimed  over  1,  260,000  votes  in  the  whole  country. 

These  figures,  as  future  elections  proved,  were  misleading. 
Frightened  congressmen,  both  Republicans  and  Democrats, 
had  made  overtures  to  the  Greenback  voters,  that  were  not 
sincere,  and  once  re-elected  their  ardor  for  the  principles  of 
the  Greenbackers  and  their  Labor  allies,  visably  cooled. 

There  was  a  State  election  in  Wisconsin  in  1879,  and  the 
Greenback  ticket  headed  by  Reuben  May,  received  some- 
thing less  than  13,000  votes. 

56 


It  is  not  unlikely  that  the  prominence  of  Mark  M. 
("Brick")  Pomeroy  and  his  newspaper,  then  published  in 
La  Crosse,  were  distasteful  to  Mr.  Allis,  and  to  some  other 
leaders  who  were  more  inconspicuous  than  he  in  this  cam- 
paign. "Brick"  was  exploiting  the  Greenback  Party  for 
personal  ends  and  noisily  proclaiming  himself  as  the  organ- 
izer of  Greenback  Clubs,  which  were  carefully  attached  to 
the  subscription  list  of  his  paper,  as  a  pre-requisite  of  ortho- 
doxy. 

The  Republicans  still  felt  in  danger,  and  President  Hayes 
and  his  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  recognized  the  importance 
to  the  country  of  the  currency  question,  in  their  public 
utterances  in  the  fall  of  1879  and  at  the  opening  of  the  year 
1880.  The  Secretary's  report  at  the  opening  of  Congress 
was  devoted  almost  entirely  to  the  financial  question. 

In  the  spring  of  1880,  E.  H.  Benton  who  had  been  on  the 
ticket  with  Mr.  Allis  in  1877,  as  candidate  for  Lieutenant 
Governor,  wrote,  from  Wells  Mills,  Nebraska,  to  the  Oshkosh 
Standard,  (Greenback),  a  letter  proposing  Mr.  Allis's  name 
for  the  presidency. 

In  this  letter  Mr.  Benton  predicted  that  the  Greenback 
candidates  would  play  any  important  part  "in  the  coming 
struggle,"  and  said: 

The  native  modesty  of  Mr.  Allis  could  count  against  him  in  a  Conven- 
tion of  machine  politicians,  but  among  men  of  brain  and  principles  he 
would  win  such  consideration  as  would  honor  both  him  and  those  who 
would  put  him  forward. 

In  all  our  acquaintance  with  public  men  we  never  met  with  his  superior 
in  unaffected  sincerity,  genuine  friendliness  and  purity  of  motives.  We 
are  aware  that  such  qualities  are  not  the  most  in  demand  in  the  selfish, 
corrupt  struggle  for  office  that  marks  the  old  parties  but  we  mean  nothing 
and  achieve  nothing  unless  we  utterly  subvert  the  old  and  truly  inaugurate 
a  "new,"  that  is  new  from  cellar  to  garret,  from  root  to  topmost  bough. 

Nothing  should  hinder  the  men  who  so  gallantly  and  unselfishingly 
gave  time  and  money  without  stint  in  the  memorable  campaign  of  '77 
when  Allis  ran  for  Governor,  from  reorganizing  and  securing  a  majority, 
or  at  least  a  plurality  of  the  votes  in  Wisconsin  in  1880. 

The  letter  was  copied  by  the  Chicago  Sentinel,  with  the 
editorial  comment  that  "So  far  there  has  been  no  man 
named  who  has  been  truer  to  the  cause,  or  who  possesses 
greater  ability  or  fitness  for  the  presidency  than  Mr.  Allis." 

This  was  early  in  May.  On  the  27th  of  May  the  State 
Convention  met  in  Watertown,  with  a  good  attendance  and 
a  report  of  it  contains  the  following: 

57 


The  following  resolution,  offered  by  Edwin  Petersilea,  of  the  Oshkosh 
Standard,  and  ably  seconded  by  M.  H.  Barnum,  of  the  Wausau  Torch  of 
Liberty,  was  enthusiastically  received,  and  adopted  with  prolonged  applause: 

RESOLVED:  That  the  name  of  Hon.  Edward  P.  Allis  be  presented 
to  the  Greenback-Labor  Convention  at  Chicago,  June  9th,  as  Wisconsin's 
candidate  for  President. 

A  full  complement  of  twenty  delegates  was  chosen  to 
attend  the  National  Convention  at  Chicago,  on  June  9,  and 
an  Electoral  Ticket  was  also  selected. 

The  Chicago  Convention,  which  passed  into  history  as 
the  "Greenback  National  Convention,"  was  largely  attended 
and  gathered  together  many  new  political  elements,  in- 
cluding women.  The  call  invited  all  classes  of  men  and 
women  to  join  in  the  movement  for  changes  in  the  laws, 
especially  those  respecting  finance  and  labor.  There  were 
eight  women  among  the  delegates,  and  Susan  B.  Anthony, 
by  invitation,  addressed  the  convention.  Dennis  Kearney, 
the  "Sand  Lot"  orator,  of  San  Francisco,  was  a  feature,  and 
was  put  into  leading  strings  by  making  him  sergeant-at-arms. 

A  split  in  the  party  that  had  been  created  largely  through 
the  annoying  activities  of  "Brick"  Pomeroy,  was  healed, 
and  the  delegates  to  his  rival  or  "Rump"  Convention,  took 
seats  in  the  Exposition  Building  with  the  regular  and  larger 
body. 

The  Milwaukee  Sentinel's  report,  and  others,  called  the 
Convention  "The  Rag  Baby  Crowd,"  but  the  Chicago  Inter 
Ocean,  which  was  edited  by  William  Penn  Nixon,  had  strong 
Greenback  sympathies,  and  it  reported  the  Convention  very 
fully.  It  said  that  "there  was  an  aspect  of  strong  intelli- 
gence, the  Convention  being  one  of  respectability  in  the 
general,  superior  to  the  character  the  enemies  of  the  move- 
ment are  accustomed  to  portray  for  its  adherents." 

The  Committee  on  Credentials  reported  617  regular 
delegates  and  there  were  about  244  others  added,  including 
the  bolting  "Farewell  Hall"  faction,  and  Socialists,  who 
were  also  invited  to  seats. 

The  Convention  on  the  last  day,  when  nominations  were 
made,  got  into  a  state  of  much  excitement  and  the  closing 
session  lasted  all  night,  final  adjournment  coming  at  6:45 
A.  M.  June  12.  The  ballot  for  a  candidate  for  President 
did  not  begin  until  4:10  A.  M.  No  newspaper  report,  of  a 
number  examined,  both  in  Chicago  and  Wisconsin,  makes 
mention  of  the  presentation  to  the  Convention  of  several  of 
the  candidates  who,  Mr.  Allis  among  them,  received  votes. 


*There  were  seven  candidates  in  all,  and  according  to 

McKee's  publication,  previously  referred  to,  the  nominat- 
ing ballot  was  as  follows: 

Candidates,  Votes 

James  B.  Weaver,  of  Iowa,  224^ 

Hendrick  P.  Wright,  of  Pennsylvania,  126^ 

Stephen  D.  Dillaye,  of  New  York,  119 

Benjamin  F.  Butler,  of  Massachusetts,  95 

Solon  Chase,  of  Maine,  89 

Edward  P.  Allis,  of  Wisconsin,  41 

Alexander  Campbell,  of  Illinois,  21 

General  Weaver,  then  a  member  of  Congress,  was  nomi- 
nated, and  Mr.  Allis  was  not  the  "tail  ender."  It  still  stands 
to  his  credit  that  he  had  the  solid  vote  of  his  own  State  Dele- 
gation and  received  twenty  one  votes,  from  other  states. 
But  one  other  Wisconsin  man,  *Gen.  Edward  S.  Bragg,  ever 
received  votes  for  President,  in  a  National  Convention  of  any 
party,  from  outside  his  State,  and  but  two  others,  Gen. 
Edward  S.  Bragg  and  Edward  C.  Wall  ever  had  the  solid 
vote  of  a  Wisconsin  Delegation  for  a  nomination  to  the 
presidency. 

At  this  time  the  official  figures  gave  the  National,  or 
Greenback  Party,  fourteen  members  of  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives, so  in  many  states  they  were  a  very  important 
factor. 

It  was  a  matter  of  note  that  a  Wisconsin  man  was 
sufficiently  prominent,  at  the  zenith  of  this  large  National 
movement,  to  be  one  of  seven  to  receive  votes  for  President 
of  the  United  States,  and  this  too  when  he  was  anything 
but  a  self-assertive  candidate. 

Under  the  cry  of  "good  times"  the  Republicans  made  an 
aggressive  campaign  for  Garfield,  and  while  the  Greenback 
vote  in  the  Nation  exceeded  300,000,  over  three  per  cent  of 
the  total  vote,  it  was  not  what  the  successful  combination 
of  1878,  and  the  State  campaigns  of  1879,  had  led  the  hope- 
ful leaders  to  expect.  In  Wisconsin  Weaver  polled  but 
7,980  votes,  less  than  a  third  of  the  vote  polled  by  Mr.  Allis, 
for  Governor,  in  1877. 


*Application  to  the  Librarian  of  Congress  and  dilligent  search  of 
newspaper  files  in  Chicago  and  Wisconsin,  fail  to  discover  a  detailed  state- 
ment of  this  vote,  by  states,  so  it  is  impossible  to  tell  whence  Mr.  Allis's 
21  votes  from  outside  Wisconsin,  came. 

*Bragg  had  124^  votes  for  President  in  the  Gold  Democratic  National 
Convention  of  1896. 


59 


But  the  Greenback  Movement  was  not  dead  and  Mr. 
Allis,  a  year  later,  (1881)  was  still  so  faithful  to  it,  that  he 
once  more  accepted,  under  protest,  the  nomination  for 
Governor,  though  fully  aware  of  its  hopelessness.  But  a 
strong  appeal  was  made  to  him  by  the  leaders  to  give  the 
party  the  help  of  his  leadership  and  he  was  not  one  to  be 
daunted  by  apparently  overwhelming  odds. 

Robert  Schilling,  who  had,  by  this  time,  become  a  resident 
of  Milwaukee,  was  Chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Resolu- 
tions at  the  State  Convention  at  Watertown,  which  urged 
this  nomination  upon  Mr.  Allis,  and  the  Platform,  which 
was  unique,  and  politically,  very  ingenious,  he  claims  to 
have  drawn.  It  was  as  follows: 

The  National  Party  of  Wisconsin,  believing  that  a  bonded  debt  is  a 
system  of  slavery,  and  that  all  bonds  should  be  paid  and  no  more  issued; 
believing  that  there  is  no  difference  in  principle  between  the  Republican 
and  Democratic  Parties,  so-called,  both  being  committed  and  subservient 
to  the  baneful  influences  of  monopolies,  whether  of  money,  railroads,  tele- 
graphs, land  or  any  other  description, — reaffirms  the  Platform  of  the  National 
Convention  adopted  at  Chicago  June  9,  1880,  and  submits  to  the  people 
of  the  State  these  extracts  from  the  writings  of  eminent  persons  as  its 
declaration  of  principles : 

1.  Money  is  a  creation  of  law. — Artistotle. 

2.  Labor  is  prior  to  and  independent  of  capital.     Capital  is  only 
the  fruit  of  labor,  and  could  never  have  existed  if  labor  had   not    first 
existed.     Labor  is  the  superior  of  capital  and  deserves  much  the  higher  con- 
sideration.— Abraham  Lincoln. 

3.  The  great  interest  of  this  country,  the  producing  cause  of  all 
its  prosperity  is  labor,  labor,  labor!     The  Government  was  made    to  en- 
courage and  protect  this  industry  and  give  it  security.     To  this  very  end, 
with  this  object  in  view,  power  was  given  to  Congress  over  the  currency 
and  over  the  money  system  of  the  country. — Daniel  Webster. 

4.  Bank  paper  must  be  suppressed  and  the  circulation  restored  to 
the  Nation  to  whom  it  belongs. — Thomas  Jefferson. 

5.  The  experience  of  the  present  panic  has  proven  that  our  currency, 
based  as  it  is  upon  the  credit  of  the  Nation,  is  the  best  money  the  world 
ever  saw. — U.  S.  Grant. 

6.  We  believe  that  the  issue  of  the  currency  should  be  commensurate 
with  the  industrial  and  commercial  interest  of  the  people. — Ohio  Republican 
Platform,  1868. 

7.  One  currency  for  the  Government  and  the  people;  the  laborer 
and  the  office-holder;  the  pensioner  and  the  soldier;  the  producer  and  the 
bond-holder. — Democratic  National  Platform,  1868. 

8.  The  bond-holder  who  refuses  to  take  the  same  kind  of  money 
for  his  bonds  that  he  paid  for  them  is  a  repudiator  and  extortioner. — 
John  Sherman. 

9.  It  would  be  an  act  of  folly  on  our  part  after  having  sold  these 
bonds,  at  an  average  of  sixty  cents  on  the  dollar,  now  to  make  a  new  con- 

60 


tract  for  the  benefit  of  the  holder,  and  would  be  an  indirect  violation  of 
at  least  four  statutes. — Oliver  P.  Morton. 

10.  The  three  great  civilizers,  the  dollar,  the  telegraph,  and  the  loco- 
motive, should  be  the  intelligent  servants  and  not  the  greedy  and  brutal 
masters  of  the  people. — E.  P.  Allis. 

Resolved,  That  we  recognize  in  the  attempted  assassination  of  Presi- 
dent Garfield  a  natural  result  of  the  spoils  system  in  American  politics 
and  therefore  demand  that  all  public  officers  as  far  as  possible,  should 
be  elected  by  a  direct  vote  of  the  people. 

Resolved,  That  suffrage  is  an  inherent  right  for  both  men  and  women, 
and  should  not  be  abridged  except  for  crime  or  mental  incapacity. 

Resolved,  That  the  $36,000,000  now  loaned  to  the  National  Banks 
be  immediately  called  in,  and  the  amount  applied  to  the  payment  of  the 
National  Debt. 

The  vote  cast  for  this  ticket  was  less  than  that  cast  for 
General  Weaver  the  year  previous.  Mr.  Allis  got  7002 
votes,  but  little  more  than  one  fourth  of  his  own  vote  in  1877. 

In  1882  there  were  seven  Greenback  candidates  for 
Congress  in  the  field,  in  Wisconsin,  but  one  of  whom  received 
as  high  as  1000  votes.  Geo.  B.  Goodwin,  a  former  Green- 
backer,  got  1922  votes  as  a  Trades  Assembly  candidate,  in 
Milwaukee,  but  the  Greenback  strength  was  fast  waning. 
By  1884,  Gen.  Butler,  as  the  People's  Party  candidate  for 
President,  got  only  4598  votes  in  Wisconsin,  and  Col.  Utley, 
for  Governor,  4274.  The  party  then  rapidly  disintegrated 
and  its  members  drifted  to  other  political  alliances.  Mr. 
Allis  and  many  others  who  had  been  leaders,  returned  to  the 
Republican  Party. 

The  Greenback  Movement,  as  has  been  pointed  out,  was 
in  advance  of  its  time,  in  many  respects,  but  it  had  within 
it  many  elements  of  progress.  Except  its  chief  financial 
proposition  as  to  greenback  currency,  which  was  impractical 
and  helped  to  obscure  and  discredit  its  other  and  better 
proposals,  most  of  the  measures  advocated,  have  since  been, 
in  whole  or  in  part,  appropriated  by  the  Republican  Party 
and  incorporated  into  statute  law. 

One  feature  of  Greenback  Platforms  was  the  demand 
that  silver  be  remonetized  to  make  amends  for  "the  crime 
of  '73."  This  Movement  also  made  the  earliest  demand  for 
the  free  coinage  of  silver,  which,  as  has  been  previously 
stated,  first  appeared  in  the  National  Greenback  Platform 
of  1880,  on  which,  General  Weaver  ran  for  President,  which 
demanded  the  abolition  of  National  Banks  and"  the  unlimited 
coinage  of  silver,  as  well  as  gold."  The  silver  legislation  had 

61 


been  pointed  to  by  the  Greenbackers,  from  the  outset,  as  an 
important  factor  in  the  contraction  of  the  currency,  which 
they  deplored,  and  thereafter,  the  subject  was  up,  with 
practical  constancy,  until  the  Bryan  Democracy  made  it 
their  "paramount"  National  issue  in  1896. 

In  1888,  because  the  Democrats  had  repealed  the  Sherman 
silver  purchase  law,  the  Republican  National  Platform  upon 
which  Benjamin  Harrison  was  elected,  condemned  the 
Democratic  administration  of  Grover  Cleveland,  for  its 
"efforts  to  demonetize  silver,"  illustrating  how  partisan 
political  opportunists  grasp  at  any  chance  to  criticise  their 
political  opponents,  regardless  of  consistency.  Eight  years 
later  the  Cleveland  Gold  Democrats  saved  these  same 
critics  from  defeat  by  Bryan. 

In  1896,  three  years  after  another  panic,  the  Bryan 
Platform  declared  "that  the  act  of  1873  demonetizing 
silver  *  *  *  has  resulted  in  the  appreciation  of  gold  and  a 
*  *  *  fall  in  the  prices  of  commodities  purchased  by  the 
people  *  *  *  the  enrichment  of  the  money  lending  class  * 
the  prostration  and  improverishment  of  the  people."  This 
platform  opposed  the  issue  of  Government  Bonds,  and  de- 
clared against  National  Banks  in  terms  that  sounded  very 
like  the  demands  of  the  Greenbackers  twenty  years  earlier. 

Mr.  Bryan  captured  the  organization  of  the  Democratic 
Party.  Fusion  with  Populists  and  Silver  Republicans,  was 
affected  in  several  states,  and  although  defeated,  he  polled 
6,287,352  of  the  13,952,179  votes  cast  in  that  campaign. 

If  the  Greenback  movement  had  not  been  attempted 
when  war  prejudices  were  still  so  strong  that  the  cry; 
"Don't  help  the  Democrats!"  was  enough  to  drive  a  host 
whose  prejudices  were  stronger  than  their  principles,  back 
into  the  Republican  fold,  the  "Greenback  Idea"  might  have 
become  more  formidable  in  the  eighties,  than  the  Free  Silver 
Idea,  its  descendant,  was  in  1896.  Yet,  but  for  the  revolt 
of  the  Gold  Democrats  in  1896,  Bryan  would  have  been 
elected.  That  movement  not  only  checked  and  dis- 
heartened his  followers  but  it  aroused  the  frightened  Repub- 
licans into  effective  action,  and  candidate  McKinley  learned 
to  pronounce  the  word  "gold"  which  he  had  previously  been 
unable  to  utter. 

Even  now,  there  are  many  who  believe  that  the  unusual 
production  of  gold,  since  1896,  is  the  only  thing  that  has 


warded  off  the  calamities  predicted  for  the  country  if  silver 
coinage  was  not  made  free  and  unlimited,  at  an  arbitrary 
ratio  of  "16  to  1."  It  is  a  fact  that  the  value  of  the 
world's  gold  production  rose  from  $202,251,600  in  1896,  to 
$400,342,100  in  1906,  nearly  100  per  cent  in  ten  years,  and 
year  by  year,  since,  gold  production  increases.  Even 
President  Taft  has  attributed  the  increase  in  the  cost  of 
living  to  the  depreciation  in  the  value  of  our  gold  money. 

Within  recent  years  we  have  had  many  financial  writers, 
bankers  and  publicists  among  them,  who  adopt  "the  quan- 
titive  theory  of  money,"  and  take  the  ground  that  the  rise 
in  prices  witnessed  in  recent  years,  is  due  to  the  cheapening 
of  gold  consequent  upon  this  large  increase  in  the  world's 
supply. 

The  financial  problem  is,  therefore,  still  with  us,  and  the 
"Bankers'  Panic"  of  1907,  like  its  predecessors,  has  brought 
all  of  the  old,  as  well  as  new  doctors,  into  the  case.  We 
are  still  drifting  without  a  financial  system  that  gives 
assurance  of  automatic  adaptability  to  the  needs  of  business 
under  any  serious  stress  of  hard  times.  We  are  still  critics 
of  our  banks,  and  the  next  panic,  like  the  last,  will  probably 
find  us  still  unprepared,  and  without  either  a  stable  currency 
or  an  efficient  banking  system. 

THE  END. 


63 


Appendix  No.  1 


THE  CURRENCY  QUESTION. 


By  G.  M.  STEELE, 
President  of  Lawrence  University,  Appleton,  Wis. 


The  difficulties  of  the  currency  question  are  perhaps  greater  than 
those  of  almost  any  other  with  which  the  political  economist  is  called  to 
deal.  The  complications  and  mysteries  involved  in  it  give  rise  to  wide 
differences  of  opinion  among  candid  men.  Few  probably  undertake  to 
discuss  the  subject  without,  to  a  greater  or  less  extent,  contradicting  them- 
selves as  well  as  one  another.  I  find  in  the  works  of  Bastiat,  the  well- 
known  French  economist,  a  malediction  which  he  puts  in  the  mouth  of  a 
man  who  has  evidently  studied  the  subject  till  he  has  grown  quite  desperate. 
He  says:  "I  curse  money  because  it  is  constantly  confounded  with  wealth; 
and  from  this  confusion  arise  errors  and  calamaties  without  number. 
I  curse  it  because  its  functions  are  ill  understood  and  very  difficult  of 
comprehension.  I  curse  it  because  it  confuses  all  ideas,  causes  the  means 
to  be  taken  for  the  end,  the  obstacle  for  the  cause,  alpha  for  omega;  be- 
cause its  presence  in  the  world,  beneficial  in  itself,  has  introduced  a  false 
notion,  a  begging  of  the  question,  a  fallacious  theory,  that  in  its  numerous 
ramifications  has  impoverished  man  and  crimsoned  the  earth  with  blood. 
I  curse  it,  because  I  feel  myself  incapable  of  wrestling  against  the  error 
to  which  it  has  given  birth  otherwise  than  by  a  long  and  fastidious  dis- 
sertation to  which  no  one  will  listen." 

Yet,  notwithstanding  all  the  bewilderments  and  confusions  with 
which  the  subject  is  fraught,  there  must  be  some  truth  to  which  study  and 
experience  should  bring  us;  some  proper  and  practicable  and  efficient 
financial  system.  That  the  systems  and  methods  which  have  been  tried 
in  modern  times  are  vastly  imperfect  in  their  character,  and  that  they 
are  essentially  disastrous  in  their  operation,  is  too  obvious  for  argument. 
Evidently  the  coming  system,  if  it  has  any  approximation  to  perfection, 
must  be  something  radically  different  from  any  of  those  hitherto  pre- 
vailing. 

It  is  not  to  be  expected  that  we  shall  very  soon  find  an  absolutely 
perfect  currency;  we  may,  however  hope  to  approximate  it  about  as  closely 
as  we  do  absolute  perfection  in  other  things.  At  all  events,  it  seems  to 
me  that  we  can  embody  the  following  characteristics  much  more  fully  in 
the  currency  of  the  future  than  has  been  the  case  in  any  currency  of  the 
past.  We  may  have: 

64 


1.  A  currency  of  uniform  value. 

2.  A   currency  of  possible   volume   sufficient  to   subserve   all    the 
interests  of  commerce. 

3.  A  currency  not  liable  to  such  expansion  and  contraction  of  volume 
as  to  cause  perpetual  fluctuations  of  values. 

4.  A  currency  self-regulating  as  to  its  volume,  adapting  it  to  the 
demands  of  commerce. 

5.  A  National  currency  not  affected  by  convulsions  and  disasters 
abroad. 

These  characteristics  partly  involve  one  another,  and  I  shall  not 
attempt  to  keep  then  entirely  separate  in  the  discussion. 

In  endeavoring  to  ascertain  a  currency  of  uniform  value,  we  shall, 
of  course,  by  one  party  be  referred  to  gold  as  fulfilling  the  condition.  But 
if  it  should  appear,  on  examination,  that  gold  is  no  more  constant  as  to 
its  value  than  other  commodities,  there  would  fail  the  great  argument  for 
making  gold  a  standard.  For  this  reason  I  propose  to  discuss  the  claim  of 

GOLD  AS  A  STANDARD  OF  VALUE. 

In  fixing  a  standard,  it  is  essential  to  select  something  that  is,  as 
nearly  as  possible,  invariable.  The  conventional  unit  of  lineal  measure 
must  not  be  a  line  which  averages  a  foot,  though  it  may  be  fourteen  inches 
today  and  9  inches  to-morrow.  The  bushel-measure  should  not  contain 
two  or  three  quarts,  more  or  less,  at  one  time  than  at  another.  For  the 
same  reason  it  is  desirable  that  the  unit  of  value  should  have  the  same 
purchasing-power  next  week  that  it  has  now.  But  here  we  are  met  by  a 
peculiarity  in  our  unit-of-value  measure.  The  measure  itself  is  a  com- 
modity. The  merchant's  scales  and  weights  and  yard-sticks  are  not  for 
sale,  but  his  dollars  are.  That  is,  the  latter  are  not  used  for  the  sole  pur- 
pose of  measurement.  Now,  value  is  not  a  quality  inherent  in  an  article; 
it  is  a  relative  term  signifying  the  amount  of  any  one  thing  for  which  a 
given  amount  of  another  may  be  equitably  exchanged.  If  there  be  but 
two  things,  the  value  of  one  being  expressed  in  terms  of  the  other,  they 
cannot  both  lose  or  gain  value  at  the  same  time.  Neither  can  one  lose  or 
gain  while  the  other  remains  stationary,  any  more  than  the  two  arms  of 
the  balance  can  both  ascend  or  descend  at  the  same  time,  or  one  go  up 
while  the  other  does  not  go  down.  If  the  value  of  the  one  is  diminished 
the  value  of  the  other  is  increased  in  a  corresponding  ratio,  and  vice  versa. 

So  with  reference  to  the  whole  range  of  commodities  in  the  community. 
There  can  be  no  general  rise  or  fall  or  values.  It  is  true  that  the  sum  of 
values  may  be  increased  or  diminished  by  the  increase  or  diminution  of 
things  having  value.  But  the  value  of  no  individual  thing  can  be  in- 
creased without  a  diminution  of  the  value  of  something  else.  If  the  value 
of  thirty,  or  fifty,  or  any  other  number  of  articles  is  increased,  there  must 
be  a  corresponding  decrease  in  the  value  of  some  other  article  or  articles. 
If  the  value  of  all  other  articles,  except  one,  be  diminished,  the  value  of 
that  one  will  be  increased  in  a  precisely  corresponding  ratio.  It  makes 
no  difference  what  these  commodities  may  be,  whether  cloth  or  leather, 
or  wheat  or  gold. 

Such  being  the  general  rule,  the  question  arises,  is  gold  any  exception 
to  it?  Has  gold,  when  used  as  money,  a  uniformity  which  no  other  com- 
modity has,  or  which  it  has  not  when  not  used  as  money?  Or  does  it 
follow  the  same  natural  law  to  which  all  other  values  are  subject?  Some 
of  the  ablest  of  our  recent  writers  on  political  economy,  and  those,  too, 

65 


who  are  ardent  supporters  of  a  value  currency  and  a  gold  basis,  now  concede 
that  there  is  no  such  stability  of  value  in  gold.  Among  these  I  may  men- 
tion Cairnes,  Fawcett  and  Jevons,  all  writers  of  acknowledged  authority. 

But  this  doctrine  of  the  fluctuating  value  of  gold  is  admitted  prac- 
tically by  even  those  who  deny  it  theoretically.  The  advocates  of  a  metallic 
currency  hold  that  certain  principles  are  firmly  established;  among  others 
that  any  amount  of  gold  and  silver  in  existence  is  sufficient  to  make  the 
exchanges  of  the  community,  or  of  the  world;  that  if  there  be  less  at  any 
one  point,  the  prices  of  all  commodities  will  fall  till  the  supply  of  the  in- 
strument of  exchange  will  equalize  the  demand;  if  there  be  more,  prices 
will  rise  till  they  absorb  the  surplus;  and  this  by  a  natural  law.  They  also 
explain  that  the  doctrine  may  be  stated  in  another  way,  viz.,  that  gold 
always  goes  from  where  it  is  cheap  and  plenty  to  where  it  is  dear  and  scarce. 
Now,  if  gold  be  of  uniform  value,  how  can  it  be  dear  in  one  place,  and 
cheap  in  another;  or  how  can  it  be  cheaper  or  dearer  in  any  place  at  one 
time  than  another?  If  general  prices  have  fallen  or  risen,  then  money, 
which  is  the  correlative  of  commodities  in  the  relation  indicated  by  price, 
must  have  also  correspondingly  risen  or  fallen. 

The  theory  of  Professor  Sumner,  and  those  who  think  with  him  in 
relation  to  the  regulation  of  prices  on  the  basis  of  a  gold  currency,  I  take 
to  be  substantially  as  follows:  If  for  any  reason  gold  is  drawn  away 
from  the  country,  general  values  diminish,  which  is  only  another  way  of 
saying  that  the  value  of  gold  increases  according  to  the  natural  law  of 
supply  and  demand.  It  is  true  that  the  prices  change,  not  merely  as 
these  teachers  intimate,  in  proportion  to  the  decrease  in  the  amount  of 
gold,  but  far  more  than  this,  and  another  reason;  that  is,  because  of  the 
derangement  of  business  and  the  stoppage  of  industries  consequent  upon 
the  scarcity  of  money.  But  however  this  may  be,  when  the  value  of 
commodities  decreases  and  the  value  of  gold  increases,  then  the  latter 
flows  back  into  the  country.  This  causes  prices  to  increase  and  the  value 
of  gold  to  decrease,  until  it  has  reached  the  extreme  point  of  reaction, 
when  the  gold,  because  of  its  too  greatly  diminished  value  goes  abroad 
again,  causing  the  diminution  of  prices  with  the  usual  hardships  and  dis- 
aster attending  such  an  effect.  This  is  what  is  meant  by  the  amount  of 
money  regulating  itself  as  it  is  said  it  always  will  on  a  sound  metallic  basis. 
It  is  simply  regulation  by  revulsion.  If  these  writers  are  correct,  fluctua- 
tions are  inevitable  in  the  nature  of  things,  crises  must  occur,  every  period 
of  prosperity  must  have  its  antithesis  in  a  period  of  disaster.  This  has 
been  the  actual  course  of  events  in  our  commercial  history  and  in  that  of 
Great  Britain  for  the  last  fifty  or  sixty  years,  under  the  regime  of  a  nominal 
specie  basis;  a  commercial  cycle  is  accomplished  in  about  ten  years,  with 
something  like  intervening  and  irregular  epicycles. 

The  history  of  one  of  these  periods  is  the  history  of  all,  and  is  familiar 
to  us  all.  We  begin  with  moderate  prices,  money  scarce  and  dear,  and 
wages  low,  but  employment  at  some  wages  for  most  who  are  willing  to 
work.  Production  is  enlarged,  commerce  is  more  lively,  prices  rise,  capital 
increases,  money  becomes  plenty  and  cheap.  Our  expenditures  become 
more  profuse,  we  run  larger  risks  in  business,  importation  exceeds  expor- 
tation; money  begins  to  go  abroad  and  consequently  becomes  scarce;  a 
panic  ensues;  business  is  curtailed;  the  panic  changes  to  real  revulsion; 
many  industries  stop;  bankruptcy  is  the  order  of.  the  day;  all  kinds  of 
commodities  fall  to  the  lowest  prices,  till  money  rises  so  much  in  value  that 
it  becomes  an  article  of  import,  and  as  it  flows  back,  industry  revives, 
slowly  at  first,  and  then  more  rapidly,  and  we  start  off  again  to  repeat 
the  same  process. 

66 


Now,  it  will  be  observed  that  there  is  implied  in  all  this  change,  and 
indeed  in  the  very  language  of  the  sturdiest  bullionists  who  discuss  the 
subject,  however  they  may  manage  to  conceal  it  even  from  themselves, 
this  one  thing,  viz.,  that  the  value  of  gold  follows  the  same  law  of  supply 
and  demand  that  the  values  of  other  commodities  do,  and  that  this  value 
varies  largely  in  different  localities,  and  in  the  same  locality  at  different 
times.  Few  doctrines  are  more  fallacious  than  that  of  the  stability  of 
the  value  of  gold,  and  few  fallacies  are  more  wide-spread  and  more  mis- 
chievous. It  comes  from  the  habit  prevalent  even  among  the  well  in- 
structed, and  those  who  theoretically  know  better,  of  practically  confound- 
ing price  with  value.  It  will  not  be  difficult  to  show  that  the  purchasing 
power  of  gold — and  this  is  what  we  mean  by  value — within  the  last  six 
years  has  varied  by  an  imperceptible  fraction  less  than  that  of  our  national 
paper  currency,  even  when  the  latter  has  been  under  unnecessary  and 
unnatural  disabilities. 

Commissioner  Wells,  in  his  report  of  1869,  (p.  52)  gives  a  tabular 
statement  of  the  comparative  prices  of  a  list  of  eleven  staple  articles  in  the 
Philadelphia  market  on  July  30,  1867,  and  July  30,  1869.  The  average 
decrease  in  the  price  of  these  eleven  articles,  reckoned  in  currency,  is  30  9-10 
per  cent.,  or  currency  values  had  increased  45  per  cent.;  while  the  decrease 
in  the  premium  on  gold  for  the  same  time  was  only  11  per  cent.  If  the 
prices  are  reduced  to  a  gold  standard,  and  if  we  may  take  these  articles 
as  representative  of  general  prices,  as  Mr.  Wells  obviously  intends,  we 
shall  find  that  the  value  of  gold,  in  these  two  years  varied  40  per  cent. 

Take  another  example.  Amasa  Walker,  in  his  work  on  the  Science  of 
Wealth,  (p.  488,)  gives  the  comparative  prices  of  a  list  of  seventeen  articles 
for  the  four  successive  years,  1862  to  1865  inclusive,  in  the  Boston  market 
for  the  month  of  October.  These  articles,  as  he  says,  "are  of  domestic 
produce,  not  directly  affected  by  customs  or  excise  charges."  Taking 
these  as  representative  of  general  values,  we  learn  that  the  advance  in  the 
whole  four  years  amounts  to  141  per  cent.,  while  the  premium  on  gold  in 
the  same  time  has  advanced  only  11  5-10  per  cent.  Reducing  everything 
to  a  gold  standard  we  find  that  the  value  of  gold  has  fallen  nearly  53  per 
cent,  in  four  years.  In  other  words,  whatever  you  might  have  purchased 
for  a  gold  dollar  in  1862,  you  would  have  been  obliged  to  pay  $2.13  for  the 
same  article  in  1865.  By  the  same  table  we  learn  that  from  October, 
1864,  to  October  1865,  while  the  premium  on  gold  fell  30  per  cent,  general 
prices  rose  10  5-10  per  cent.  Reducing  all  the  values  to  a  gold  standard, 
I  find  that  gold  fluctuated  in  a  single  year  nearly  58  per  cent,  while  the 
fluctuation  in  the  value  of  greenbacks  tested  by  the  same  standard  of 
general  prices,  was  only  9-5-10  per  cent,  or  less  than  one-sixth  of  that  of  gold. 

A  more  reliable  illustration  is  found  in  the  Banker's  Almanac  for  1875. 
In  it  is  a  tabular  list  of  the  comparative  prices  of  seventy-five  staple  articles 
in  the  New  York  market  on  the  first  day  of  May,  for  thirteen  successive 
years,  1862  to  1874.  From  the  information  contained  in  this  table,  and  a 
table  giving  the  monthly  premium  on  gold  during  the  same  years,  I  have 
made  some  careful  calculations,  the  results  of  which  are  given  in  the  follow- 
ing table.  It  embraces,  in  separate  columns,  the  rise  and  fall  of  the  premium 
on  gold,  reckoned  by  the  percentage  on  the  premium  of  each  year*,  rise 
and  fall  of  currency-prices — the  same  of  gold-prices,  (or  reduced  to  the 

The  percentage  is  not  the  numerical  per  cent  of  the  rise  or  fall,  but 
the  percentage  on  the  premiums  at  the  time  from  which  the  reckoning 
starts.  Thus,  if  the  premium  is  30  per  cent,  and  then  goes  up  to  40  per 
cent,  the  rise  is  not  10  per  cent,  but  33  1-3  per  cent. 

67 


gold-standard,)   the  fluctuation  of  currency-value,   and   the  fluctuations 
in  the  value  of  gold.     The  figures  for  the  last  two  years  are  taken  from  the 


New  York  Financial  Review  of  1876: 


Years. 

Premium 
on  gold 

Currency 
prices 

Gold 
Prices 

Value  of 
Currency 

Value  of 
Gold 

1863-4 

Per  Cent, 
r  20  00 

Per  Cent. 
34  00 

Per  Cent, 
r  28  00 

Per  Cent, 
f  25.00 

Per  Cent, 
f  22.00 

1864-5  
1865-6 

f  40.58 
f     9.15 

2.00 
16.10 

f  14.70 
f  14.00 

r    2.00 
r  20.00 

r  17.60 
r  17.00 

1866-7  
1867-8  
1868-9  

f    3.50 
r    7.50 
f     1.25 

1.60 
3.60 
12.70 

f    0.09 
f    2.10 
r  11.00 

f     1.40 
r    3.70 
f  11.25 

r    1.00 
r    2.10 
f    9.87 

1869-70  
1870-1  
1871-2  
1872-3  
1873-4  
1874-5  
1875-6 

f  63.00 
f  20.50 
r  14.00 
r  33.00 
f  23.50 
r  21.20 
r    4.40 

11.20 
7.22 
6.10 
8.40 
f  42.60 
f  10.18 
f    0.72 

r    5.60 
f    8.58 
r    8.68 
r    4.00 
f  40.80 
f  11.85 
f     1.15 

r  13.00 
r    7.80 
f     5.67 
f     7.75 
r  73.00 
r  11.12 
r    0.72 

f    4.75 
r    9.27 
f    8.00 
f    3.75 
r  69.00 
r  13.12 
r     1.16 

Average  ann'l  varia's  .  .  . 

20.12 

12.08 

11.66 

14.80 

14.50 

From  this  table  we  learn  several  things;  among  others,  1.  That  the 
fluctuations  of  prices  in  no  respect  correspond  with  the  variations  in  the 
premium  on  gold.  2.  That  the  value  of  gold  instead  of  a  fixed  and  staple 
value  is  constantly  fluctuating  and  that  in  these  thirteen  years  it  has  varied 
all  the  way  from  1  per  cent  up  to  69  per  cent  in  one  year.  3.  That  in 
four  out  of  the  last  six  years  the  variation  in  the  value  of  gold  has  been 
greater  than  in  that  of  greenbacks.  4.  That  for  the  whole  thirteen  years, 
during  which  time  the  greenback  has  been  subjected  to  unnatural  dis- 
abilities by  the  action  of  the  Government,  its  average  annual  variation  in 
value  has  been  not  quite  one-third  of  one  per  cent  greater  than  that  of  gold. 

It  may  be  said  that  these  statistics  pertain  to  an  era  full  of  disturbing 
elements  and  that  therefore  calculations  made  from  them  are  unreliable. 
Let  us,  then,  examine  certain  facts  belonging  to  a  time  free  from  those 
perturbations.  I  avail  myself  of  another  table  and  diagram  prepared  by 
Mr.  Walker*.  He  gives  us  a  tabular  list  of  the  comparative  prices  of 
ten  staple  articles  in  the  New  York  market  for  twenty-six  years,  1834  to 
1859  inclusive — the  only  period,  he  says,  for  which  we  have  a  correct 
data,  also  a  period  of  general  peace.  The  articles  selected  are  among  the 
most  common  in  use,  and  those  whose  prices  are  best  known  and  least 
liable  to  fluctuations  except  by  changes  in  the  currency.  The  prices,  it 
will  be  observed,  are  gold  prices.  If  the  articles  here  specified  fairly  repre- 
sent the  general  values  of  the  commodities  of  the  country,  the  value  of 
gold  diminished  in  two  years,  1834  to  1836,  more  than  35  per  cent.  In 
the  next  six  years,  1836  to  1842,  its  value  increased  109  per  cent.  In  the 
next  five  years  it  diminished  again  33Mj  per  cent,  having  had  an  advance 
in  the  meantime  of  11  per  cent.  In  the  next  three  years  the  value  of  gold 
advanced  nearly  30  per  cent,  and  in  the  next  seven  years,  with  some  fluc- 
tuation in  the  interval  it  diminished  36^  per  cent,  with  an  increase  the 
next  year  of  15^  per  cent.  Here,  then,  we  have  in  the  space  of  twenty- 

*Science  of  Wealth,  by  Amasa  Walker,  (larger  edition,)  pp.  177,  178, 
with  diagram. 

68 


four  years  seven  marked  fluctuations  varying  from  11  to  109  per  cent, 
with  some  minor  variations  not  noticed.  Mr.  Walker  constructed  these 
tables  to  show  that  the  fluctuations  in  prices  correspond  with  the  variations 
in  the  amount  of  currency  in  circulation,  and  that  the  former  are  caused 
by  the  latter.  He  is  not  altogether  successful  in  that  which  he  attempts, 
and  his  tables  are  by  no  means  perfect.  But  whatever  the  causes  may 
be,  if  the  tables  show  anything  with  reference  to  the  variation  of  prices, 
they  show  that  the  value  of  gold  is  exceedingly  unstable. 

That  this  is  not  wholly  owing  to  a  redundant  paper  currency  or  to 
circumstances  peculiar  to  our  own  country,  is  indicated  by  the  testimony 
of  Professor  Jevons,  who  will  certainly  be  regarded  as  a  disinterested 
witness.  In  his  recent  work  on  "Money  and  the  Mechanism  of  Exchange," 
he  refers  to  a  previous  paper  of  his  on  the  variation  of  prices,  read  before 
the  London  Statistical  Society,  in  186.5,  in  which  he  claims  to  have  shown 
that  the  value  of  gold  between  1789  and  1809,  fell  in  the  ratio  of  100  to  54, 
or  by  46  per  cent.  From  1809  to  1849.  it  rose  again  in  the  extraordinary 
ratio  of  100  to  245,  or  by  145  per  cent,  rendering  Government  annuities 
and  all  fixed  payments  extending  over  this  period  almost  two  and  a  half 
times  as  valuable  as  they  were  in  1809.  I  have  not  at  hand  any  statistics 
showing  the  amount  of  money  in  circulation  in  Great  Britian  during  these 
periods,  but  it  will  be  safe  to  assume  that  there  was  a  large  increase  on  the 
whole;  thus  indicating  another  serious  fallacy  in  the  reasonings  of  a  leading 
school  of  British  economists,  who  teach  that  the  value  of  money  depreciates, 
or  what  is  the  same  thing,  that  prices  appreciate  in  a  ratio  corresponding 
to  the  increase  of  the  amount  of  money  in  circulation.  Professor  Jevons 
says,  furthermore,  that  "since  1849*,  the  value  of  gold  has  again  fallen  to 
the  extent  of  at  least  20  per  cent;  and  a  careful  study  of  the  fluctuation 
of  prices,  as  shown  either  in  the  annual  reviews  of  trade  of  the  Economist 
newspaper  or  in  the  paper  referred  to  above,  shows  that  fluctuations  of 
from  10  to  25  per  cent  occur  in  every  credit  cycle." 

It  may  be  said  that  such  statistics  are  unsatisfactory,  because  only 
indicating  the  condition  of  things  where  a  mixed  currency  is  used.  Let 
us  then  test  the  matter  by  an  examination  of  the  price-list  in  California, 
where  there  is  a  purely  metallic  currency.  I  have  not  been  able  to  secure 
such  lists  extending  over  a  series  of  many  years,  as  I  would  desire  to  do 
in  order  to  establish  the  fact  more  clearly.  But  I  chanced  to  find  the 
other  day,  in  the  San  Francisco  Journal  of  Commerce,  of  January  12,  1876, 
a  table  of  the  comparative  prices  of  twenty-nine  staple  and  representative 
commodities  in  the  markets  of  that  city.  The  table  was  prepared  with- 
out any  reference  to  the  question  now  under  discussion  and  is  therefore 
more  reliable.  By  it  we  learn  that  between  January,  1875,  and  January 
1876,  general  prices  had  fallen  more  than  26  per  cent,  or  what  is  the  same 
thing,  the  value  of  gold  had  risen  more  than  35  per  cent  in  a  single  year. 
Now,  35  per  cent  is  a  greater  fluctuation  than  has  occurred  in  the  value 
of  greenbacks  in  any  one  year  since  1863,  with  a  single  exception. 

Another  fact  or  two  in  the  current  commercial  and  industrial  history 
of  California  may  exemplify  the  effect  of  an  exclusive  gold  currency  as 
compared  with  one  of  reliable  paper.  Mr.  Kelly,  in  a  recent  speech, 
introduced  some  statistics  indicating  very  clearly  that  the  progress  of  that 
State  in  wealth  and  population  during  the  last  decade  was  less,  in  pro- 
portion to  the  favorableness  of  its  conditions,  than  that  of  any  other  State 
not  made  the  theatre  of  war  during  the  Rebellion.  But  this  is  not  the 

This  was  said  I,  think,  about  1865,  since  that  time  gold  has  again 
risen  some  25  or  30  per  cent. 


chief  point  to  which  I  wish  to  direct  attention.  I  have,  with  much  care, 
compiled  a  table  of  comparative  wholesale  prices  of  a  list  of  nineteen  staple 
articles,  of  general  use  in  the  cities  of  San  Francisco,  Chicago,  and  New 
York,  as  they  were  sold  in  the  month  of  February  of  the  present  year. 
Instead  of  giving  the  prices  of  the  commodities  in  the  quantities  in  which 
they  are  usually  sold,  I  have  taken  proportional  amounts  of  each,  so  as 
to  bring  the  prices,  as  nearly  as  practicable,  into  the  neighborhood  of  $1 
each.  Otherwise  the  difference  of  the  price  of  one  article  in  different 
places  might  unfairly  affect  the  general  average. 

Thus,  if  pork,  at  $20  per  barrel,  be  put  against  cotton  cloth,  at  7J^ 
cents  per  yard,  the  proportion  will  not  be  as  just  as  if  we  take  one  twentieth 
of  a  barrel  of  pork  and  fourteen  yards  of  cloth: 

TABLE  OF  COMPARATIVE  PRICES  OF  STAPLE  COMMODITIES  IN  THE  MARKETS 
OF  SAN  FRANCISCO,  CHICAGO  AND  NEW  YORK,  FEBRUARY,  1876. 


ARTICLES* 

San  Francisco, 

Chicago. 

New  York, 

Price  of 

Ordinary 
Quantity 

Propor- 
tional 
Price 

Price  of 

Ordinary 
Quantity 

Propor- 
tional 
Price 

Price  of 
Ordinary 
Quantity 

Propor- 
tional 
Price 

Tea,  pound 
Oats,  bushel 
Potatoes,  bushel 
Candles,  pound 
Coffee,  pound 
Butter                       pound 

.59 
.775 
.76 
.13 
.22 
.34 
.12 
5.77 
.16 
34.00 
.60 
3.70 
,17 
10.00 
20.00 
.15 
.135 
.075 
.12 

.59 
.775 
1.52 
.91 
.10 
.02 
.20 
.154 
.12 
.133 
.20 
.925 
.02 
.00 
.00 
.90 
.945 
1.05 
1.08 

.68 
.32 
.30 
.16 
.22 
.23 
.1775 
4.75 
.12 
28.00 
.15 
4.00 
.115 
9.50 
21.50 
.20 
.105 
.075 
.095 

.68 
.32 
.60 
1.12 
1.10 
.69 
1.175 
.95 
.84 
.933 
.30 
1.00 
.69 
.95 
1.075 
1.20 
.735 
1.05 
.855 

.68 
.45 
.50 
.24 
.22 
.25 
.1075 
5.25 
.12 
22.00 
.16 
3.75 
.14 
12.00 
20.00 
.18 
.105 
.065 
.095 

.68 
.45 
.00 
.68 
.10 
.75 
.075 
.05 
.84 
.733 
.32 
.962 
.84 
1.20 
1.00 
1.08 
.735 
.91 
.855 

Sugar,  pound 
Flour,  .                       barrel 

Cheese  pound 
Pig  Iron  ton 
Eggs,  dozen 
Nails,  keg 
Hams,  pound 
Beef,  barrel 
Pork,.                          barrel 

Pepper  pound 
Cotton-cloth,  .  .  .  And'n,  yd 
Prints  And'n,  yd 
Brown  Sheeting  And'n,  yd 

19.642 

16.263 

17.26 

It  will  be  seen  at  once  by  the  foregoing  table  that  our  Government 
paper  dollar  has  in  New  York  nearly  14  per  cent  more  purchasing  power 
than  a  gold  dollar  has  in  San  Francisco,  and  that  in  Chicago,  it  has  over 
20  per  cent  more.  This,  too,  when  the  gold  dollar  has  35  per  cent  more 
purchasing  power  there  now  than  it  had  one  year  ago. 

.  It  is  now  tolerably  evident,  not  only  that  gold  has  a  very  unstable 
and  fluctuating  value,  rendering  it  totally  unfit  for  the  basis  of  a  circulating 
medium  or  a  standard,  but  that  it  is  often  more  fluctuating  and  uncertain 
in  its  character  than  is  our  national  paper  currency  at  its  worst  estate. 
What  I  mean  by  its  worst  estate  is  this:  Our  National  currency,  though 
accomplishing  marvels  for  the  salvation  of  the  country  when  threatened 


*More  than  half  of  these  articles  are  among  the  regular  exports  of 
California. 


70 


with  destruction  by  the  insurrection  and  Civil  War,  and  for  its  industrial  and 
commercial  prosperity  after  the  restoration  of  peace,  has  done  this  under 
exceedingly  unfavorable  auspices  for  its  own  credit.  Destined  from  the 
first  to  depreciation  and  partial  repudiation  by  the  very  Government 
that  issued  it,  and  assaulted  and  maligned  first  by  political  partisans, 
and  then  by  the  financial  authorities,  whose  venerable  but  false  philosophy 
it  threatened  to  undermine,  and  whose  control  over  the  wealth  of  the 
Nation  it  was  likely  to  reduce  to  its  lowest  terms,  it  has  never  had  any- 
thing like  a  fair  chance  to  prove  its  real  excellence.  Yet,  for  all  this,  during 
considerable  periods  of  time,  kept  a  steadier  value  than  gold  itself  during 
nearly  the  whole  period  of  its  existence,  its  average  annual  fluctuation 
has  not  been  perceptibly  greater  than  that  of  gold,  while  to-day  it  has 
where  it  is  used,  from  14  to  20  per  cent  more  purchasing  power  than  gold 
has  in  a  community  where  the  latter  is  the  exclusive  currency.  And  this 
is  the  medium  about  which  volumes  have  been  written,  and  speeches  by 
the  hour  have  been  made,  denouncing  it  as  a  "depreciated  currency." 

But,  it  is  said  that  under  our  present  system  or  any  other  system  of 
inconvertible  paper,  there  is  danger  of  too  much  currency,  and  the  only 
preventive  of  this  evil  is  what  is  called  a  specie  basis.  But  what  is  the 
evidence  that  there  is  now,  or  that  there  has  been  too  much  currency. 
The  principle  reason  offered  is,  its  assumed  depreciation.  I  have  shown 
that  this  depreciation  is  rather  theoretical  and  speculative  than  practical; 
that  such  as  it  is,  it  has  been  caused  by  the  action  of  the  Government 
and  the  fashion  of  the  financiers.  This  brings  us  to  an  essential  charac- 
teristic of  a  suitable  currency.  It  should  be  of  a  kind,  which  will  make 
possible  a  sufficient  quantity  to  effect  the  exchanges  of  the  community, 
without  resorting  to  more  hazardous  means.  The  fact  that  a  metallic 
currency  cannot  be  supplied  in  sufficient  amount  to  perform  all  the  exchanges 
of  any  people  is  daily  proved.  It  is  seen  in  the  fact,  that  in  every  civilized 
nation  the  vast  majority  of  exchanges  are  transacted,  not  through  the 
instrumentality  of  money,  but  by  bills  of  exchange,  checks,  drafts,  book- 
accounts,  and  other  transfers  of  credit.  These  form  by  far  the  major  part 
of  the  machinery  of  commerce,  by  which,  as  Professor  Jevons  says,  almost 
all  large  exchanges  are  now  effected.  It  is  simply  a  complicated  and 
perfected  system  of  barter,  through  which  the  buyers  of  one  community 
pay  for  it,  not  in  money,  but  in  other  commodities. 

In  the  London  Clearing  House  transactions  to  the  amount  of  $30,000, 
000,000  are  affected  in  a  year  without  the  use  of  any  cash  at  all — com- 
modities bought  and  sold  being  made  to  balance  one  another.  This  is 
only  one  of  the  clearing  houses  of  Great  Britain,  and  though  by  far  the 
largest,  it  yet  effects  only  a  portion  of  the  exchange.  Now,  it  is  quite 
obvious  that  the  money  of  Great  Britain,  including  all  the  bank-notes  in 
circulation,  is  not  more  than  enough  to  effect  the  exchanges  aside  from 
the  amount  of  forty  to  fifty  billions  effected  through  other  agencies.  That 
is,  the  gold  and  silver  of  Great  Britain  supplemented  by  nearly  an  equal 
volume  of  paper  currency  is  not  enough  to  make  more  than  perhaps  one- 
fiftieth  of  the  amount  of  exchanges  which  are  there  effected.  It  may  be 
true  that  the  exchanges  are  just  as  well  effected  in  this  way  and  in  fact 
with  less  inconvenience.  But  a  point  or  two  here  must  be  noted.  A  very 
considerable  proportion  of  this  major  section  of  the  instrument  of  exchange 
is  simply  credit.  Now,  there  is  a  limit  beyond  which  credit  cannot  be 
profitably  extended.  The  smaller  the  amount  of  money  in  relation  to  the 
exchanges,  the  greater  must  be  the  expansion  of  the  credit  element,  and  it 
is  from  the  undue  expansion  of  the  latter  that  the  great  commercial  revul- 

71 


sions  ensue  rather  than  from  an  expansion  or  inflation  of  the  currency. 
Credit  can  be  kept  within  its  appropriate  and  safe  limit  only  by  a  sufficiency 
of  currency.  Gold  and  silver  cannot  anywhere  nearly  constitute  such  a 
sufficiency;  hence,  the  necessaity  of  some  other  medium  or  of  a  mixed 
currency. 

A  still  more  important  point  is  also  in  issue.  The  great  fear  always 
expressed  by  our  financiers  is  lest  there  should  be  an  over  issue  of  the 
currency.  Too  much  money  is  regarded  as  a  most  serious  evil.  Hence, 
stringent  limits  are  to  be  placed  to  the  amount  in  circulation.  It  is  even 
thought  worth  while,  just  at  this  present  time,  on  the  supposition  that 
there  is  too  much  currency,  to  contract  the  volume  at  whatever  cost. 
To  this  end  the  wheels  of  industry  must  stop;  thousands  of  capitalists, 
the  captains  of  industry,  must  go  into  bankruptcy;  production  must  be 
curtailed  to  an  alarming  extent;  tens  of  thousands  of  men,  able  and  willing 
to  work,  are  compelled  to  endure  an  enforced  idleness,  and  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  women  and  children  are  living  in  pinching  poverty,  or  dying 
of  want,  because  our  theorists  think  we  have  too  much  currency.  This 
process,  by  which  millions  of  property  are  sacrificed,  and  incalculable 
wretchedness  is  produced,  is  called  "the  heroic  remedy." 

We  might  think  this  absurd  if  it  were  applied  equally  to  the  whole 
medium  of  exchange.  How  much  more,  when  we  observe  that  the  restric- 
tion has  reference  to  only  a  small  portion  of  the  medium.  As  we  have 
seen,  the  currency  constitutes  but  a  small  fraction  of  the  medium — prob- 
ably not  more  than  one-tenth.  The  other  nine-tenths,  comprising  bills 
of  exchange,  checks  on  deposits,  and  other  transfers  of  credit,  are  not 
subject  to  any  restriction,  nor  is  there  any  natural  law  to  confine  them 
within  prescribed  boundaries.  That  portion  of  the  instrument  which  they 
comprise  sometimes  doubles  and  trebles  its  volume  and  overflows  all 
limits  in  a  wild  deluge  of  speculation;  but  no  one  talks  of  restraining  it. 
Mr.  H.  C.  Baird,  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  for  March,  1876,  has  already 
called  attention  to  this  fact.  It  is  distinction  between  the  medium  of 
exchange  of  the  common  people  and  that  of  the  great  capitalists.  The 
latter  have  no  need  of  much  money.  They  can  make  their  exchanges 
without  it.  I  venture  to  say  that  A.  T.  Stewart,  or  Cornelius  Vanderbilt, 
or  Alexander  Mitchell  do  not  handle  so  much  money  in  a  year  as  any  one 
of  a  thousand  of  our  Wisconsin  farmers  or  mechanics.  Yet  each  of  the 
former  effects  exchanges  implying  millions  of  dollars  annually.  The  farmer, 
with  a  few  hundred  dollars  worth  of  produce  to  dispose  of,  may  be  expected 
to  receive  his  pay  in  money;  and  he  must  pay  the  money  for  the  few  hundred 
dollars  worth  of  commodities  which  he  buys.  He  does  not  unusually  keep 
a  bank-account  nor  pass  his  check  in  payment  of  his  purchases,  nor  take  a 
check  which  may  be  placed  to  his  credit  in  a  moneyed  institution.  Currency 
is  the  instrument  of  exchange  with  the  common  people;  credit  is  the  in- 
strument with  the  wealthy  class.  The  machinery  of  the  former,  though 
smaller,  and  less  liable  to  perilous  expansion  than  the  latter,  though  possibly 
effecting  more  exchanges  in  the  aggregate,  is  to  be  strictly  hedged  in, 
while  the  latter  is  allowed  the  freest  scope. 

If  gold  and  silver  can  be  made  the  absolute  basis,  and  no  paper  dollar 
be  in  circulation  which  has  not  an  actual  gold  or  silver  dollar  behind  it, 
there  will  be  a  natural  limitation,  and  that,  too,  without  any  relation  to 
the  wants  of  the  community.  The  medium  of  exchange  with  the  great 
masses  of  men,  who  are  also  men  of  moderate  means,  will  be  very  small, 
and,  of  course,  undue  expansion,  will  be  impossible.  But  the  medium  of 
the  stockholders,  depositors,  and  great  property-owners,  and  even  of  many 

72 


who  do  business  on  a  fictitious  basis,  can  be  expanded  to  any  extent  which 
corresponds  with  the  amount  of  their  supposed  capital,  and  often  far 
beyond  it.  Such  a  system  tends,  whenever  it  is  adopted,  to  make  the  rich 
richer  and  the  poor  poorer,  and  if  carried  to  the  legitimate  result  would 
make  the  laborer  the  slave  of  the  capitalist. 

If,  then,,  we  would  have  a  currency  adapted  to  the  wants  of  the  people 
as  a  whole,  and  especially  to  agricultural  circumstances,  and  to  men  of 
moderate  means,  as  most  men  everywhere  are,  it  is  plain  that  a  purely 
metallic  currency  will  not  do,  nor  even  a  paper  currency,  all  of  which  can 
immediately  be  converted  into  specie.  The  paper  money  of  no  civilized 
nation,  I  believe,  has  ever  been  of  the  latter  condition.  In  any  land  today 
if  gold  should  be  demanded  by  all  the  holders  of  paper  money  regarded  as 
convertible  into  gold,  nearly  every  bank  in  Christendom  would  suspend, 
and  universal  disaster  would  result.  The  reason  why  paper  money  cir- 
culates in  the  commercial  nations,  even  where  it  is  known  that  gold  cannot 
be  had  for  it  all  at  once,  is  partly  because  the  gold  and  silver  unsupplemented 
by  this  paper  would  be  insufficient  to  do  the  business  of  exchange,  and 
partly  because  it  is  more  convenient;  therefore,  it  is  sustained  by  general 
consent.  Would  it  not  be  better  if  under  guarantee  of  the  Government, 
the  representative  of  the  whole  people,  and  therefore  by  the  legalized 
general  consent,  we  were  to  adopt  a  token  currency  of  paper,  which  be- 
cause it  has  comparatively  no  material  value,  is  not  in  itself  liable  to 
fluctuation,  and  would  remain  a  simple  indicator  and  measure  of  value. 
There  would  then  be  no  necessary  contraction  or  expansion  of  values 
in  any  given  volume. 

In  order  to  do  this  there  should  be  a  self-regulating  principle,  as  no 
man  is,  and  no  body  of  men  are  wise  enough  to  determine  the  amount  of 
money  which  is  needed  in  a  community.  The  regulative  principle  claimed 
to  be  in  a  specie  currency  is  found  in  the  fact  that  the  quantity  of  the 
precious  metals  is  so  small  that  there  is  never  likely  to  be  a  surplus  of 
money  made  solely  from  them,  and  as  to  their  being  any  lack,  it  is  said 
that  no  matter  how  small  the  amount,  whatever  there  is  will  be  enough, 
since  prices  will  adjust  themselves  to  the  quantity  of  money  in  circulation. 
That  is,  if  by  the  exigencies  of  foreign  trade,  the  precious  metals  have  gone 
abroad,  prices  must  fall  in  order  to  bring  them  back,  and  when  they  return 
prices  will  rise — in  other  words,  the  system  implies  a  series  of  fluctuations. 
As  I  have  previously  shown;  it  is  regulation  by  revulsion.  There  must 
be  periodical  panics  and  crises,  the  grand  catastrophe  occurring  about 
once  in  each  decade,  with  intervals  of  minor  disaster.  This  is  the  history 
of  nearly  all  the  commercial  nations  making  gold  and  silver  the  exclusive 
basis  of  carefully  limited  currency. 

The  plan  proposed  by  our  currency  reformers,  is  that  of  an  Inter- 
convertible Government  Bond,  bearing  interest  at  the  rate  of  one  per  cent 
a  day  for  each  $100,  into  which  any  surplus  Government  paper  currency 
may  be  at  any  time  converted,  and  then  when  the  exigencies  of  business 
require  more  money,  reconverting  the  bond  into  cash.  According  to  the 
theory  there  will  be  no  need  to  restrict  the  amount  in  circulation  by  act  of 
the  legislature;  nor  will  it  be  subject  to  the  accidentally  greater  or  less 
yield  of  the  precious  metals.  The  circulation  will  regulate  itself;  people 
will  buy  no  more  money  than  they  need,  any  more  than  they  will  buy  a 
surplus  of  yard-sticks,  or  gallon  and  bushel  measures.  I  am  not  abso- 
lutely clear  as  to  the  success  of  this  plan.  It  is  untried,  and  we  know  not 
what  difficulties  it  may  involve  in  practice.  But  I  see  no  reason  why 
it  would  not  be  safe,  and  at  least,  vastly  superior  to  any  system  heretofore 

73 


prevailing.  But  whether  this  precise  theory  be  the  correct  one  or  not, 
we  can  adhere  to  such  features  of  it  as  have  been  amply  tested  and  proved 
good. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  pretty  clear  to  my  mind  that  at  no  time  within 
the  last  fifteen  years  have  we  had  too  much  currency.  It  is  true  there  is 
very  much  dispute  among  writers  as  to  the  amount  of  paper  at  any  one 
time  actually  in  circulation  as  money.  The  difference,  doubtless,  arises 
from  the  fact  that  one  party  reckoning  only  the  greenbacks,  and  National 
Bank  notes,  arrive  at  the  conclusion  that  until  the  contraction  of  last  year 
began,  there  had  been  an  increase  of  currency  from  the  beginning  of  the 
greenback  issue;  while  the  other  party  take  into  account  the  demand  and 
interest-bearing  notes.  After  the  most  careful  comparisons  I  have  been 
able  to  make,  and  after  deducting  much  from  the  figures  of  those  who 
most  strenuously  insist  that  there  has  been  a  vast  contraction,  I  am  satisfied 
that  the  amount  in  circulation  in  1866,  was  not  less  than  $1,200,000,000. 
Amasa  Walker,  a  most  vigorous  opponent  of  all  inconvertible  paper 
money,  and  even  of  any  paper  money  which  does  not  actually  represent 
specie,  dollar  for  dollar,  in  a  work  published  in  1867,  gives  the  amount  as 
$1,258,000,000.  Calling  it  1,200,000,000,  and  our  population,  in  1866, 
37,000,000  we  had  at  that  time  less  than  $32.50  per  capita.  The  amount 
in  circulation,  in  July,  1875,  was  a  little  more  than  $17.50  per  capita. 
France,  with  a  far  more  compact  population,  and  with  less  need  of  a  large 
circulating  medium,  has  about  $48  per  capita,  nearly  three  times  as  much 
as  we  now  have.  This,  too,  by  the  way,  indicates  a  reason  why  the  French 
system  of  finance  involves  so  much  less  of  the  credit  element  in  her  exchange 
medium.  The  check,  deposit,  and  clearing-house  system  is  far  less  pre- 
valent there  than  here  or  in  Great  Britain,  and  the  expansions  and  con- 
tractions, and  periodical  revolutions  consequent  upon  them  are  far  less 
frequent  and  disastrous  here  than  in  England.  A  sufficiency  of  currency 
renders  resort  to  this  more  perilous  agency  less  necessary.  The  currency 
of  Great  Britain  amounts  to  $34.44  per  capita,  or  nearly  twice  as  much 
as  ours,  while  their  needs  are  not  nearly  so  great. 

Now,  it  is  plain  enough,  if  there  was  not  too  much  currency  for  our 
legitimate  uses  in  1866,  there  is  too  little  now,  and  to  diminish  the  amount 
in  any  case,  must  in  proportion  to  the  diminution,  produce  commercial 
and  industrial  derangements. 

In  the  second  place,  it  is  equally  clear  to  my  mind  that  at  no  time 
in  the  history  of  the  country,  have  the  farmers  and  mechanics,  laboring 
men,  and  all  others  doing  a  legitimate  business,  whether  as  capitalists  or 
laborers,  had  so  much  prosperity  as  during  the  time  of  an  abundant  currency, 
guaranteed  by  the  Government,  and  previous  to  the  presistent  efforts  to 
contract  the  circulation,  in  order  to  get  back  to  specie  payments.  Why 
should  we  not  let  well  enough  alone? 

In  reply  to  this  it  is  said  that  the  prosperity  claimed  was  fictitious. 
What  is  offered  in  proof  of  this?  Nothing,  only  that  it  has  been  succeeded 
by  a  period  of  disaster,  the  natural  consequence,  we  are  assured,  of  an 
inflated  currency.  But  here  the  stubborn  fact  meets  the  objection,  that 
with  a  specie  basis  in  this  country,  and  in  England,  where  the  specie  basis 
is  much  larger  than  here,  and  where  there  is  no  paper  money  in  circulation 
under  the  denomination  of  twenty-five  dollars,  there  have  been  the  same 
periodical  disasters,  as  great  and  terrible  as  ours  now,  and  that  they  have 
come  after  only  ten  years  of  prosperity;  while  in  our  present  case,  with 
almost  everything  against  us  by  reason  of  the  war,  we  had  a  period  of 

74 


about  fifteen  years  without  any  revulsion.  So  that,  under  the  most  dis- 
advantageous and  abnormal  conditions,  and  the  admitted  imperfections 
of  the  Government  currency,  our  period  of  freedom  was  50  per  cent  better 
than  under  any  other  system  which  has  been  tested. 

But  it  is  said  again  that  to  adhere  to  the  greenback  is  repudiation. 
It  is  not  repudiation  if  the  holders  of  notes  desire  still  to  hold  them  rather 
than  have  them  paid;  and  evidently  this  is  the  case  with  the  great  majority 
who  do  hold  and  use  these  notes.  Is  it  repudiation  in  England  when  the 
government  consolidates  its  promises  to  pay  into  billions  of  dollars'  worth 
of  certificates  of  indebtedness  which  it  does  not  even  propose  to  pay?  Do 
men  buy  repudiated  obligations,  either  of  government  or  of  individuals, 
and  pay  nearly  100  per  cent  for  them.  A  large  proportion  of  the  notes 
of  the  Bank  of  England — paper  money  to  the  amount  of  $75,000,000— are 
based,  not  upon  gold  or  silver  but  upon  these  evidences  of  the  national 
debt  which  the  nation  does  not  promise  to  pay;  and  yet  these  bank-notes 
will  command  gold  for  their  face  in  any  nation  of  Europe,  and  probably 
of  the  world.  Venice  had  such  evidences  of  debt  circulating  as  money, 
but  being  really  only  an  indefinite  promise  to  pay,  and  they  were  for  cen- 
turies from  10  to  20  per  cent  more  valuable  than  gold,  just  as  ours  very 
likely  would  be,  if  we  only  treated  them  as  we  ought. 

There  is  another  way  to  look  at  this  repudiation  sentiment  which  is 
now  so  flippantly  and  now  so  lugubriously  handled.  I  have  shown  that 
there  is  no  shadow  of  repudiation  in  extending  the  time  of  the  notes  at  the 
desire  and -for  the  benefit  of  the  people  who  use  them.  But  even  if  it  were 
a  real  repudiation  of  such  a  character  as  to  destroy  their  total  value  and 
make  it  a  dead  loss,  amounting  to  the  whole  $379,000,000,  it  would  be 
almost  immeasurably  less  disastrous  than  the  course  being  now  pursued 
to  restore  and  uphold  the  credit  of  the  nation,  as  the  phrase  goes.  Billions 
of  dollars  worth  of  property  has  already  been  destroyed,  and  many  human 
lives  have  been  sacrificed.  This  kind  of  honesty  is  very  much  like  that  of 
a  man  who  is  determined  to  pay  his  debts  if  he  has  to  rob  all  his  neighbors, 
and  even  murder  some  of  them,  in  order  to  accomplish  his  laudable  purpose. 

We  have  been  told,  and  it  has  been  assumed  as  though  it  were  a  self- 
evident  opposition,  that  there  is  no  possible  way  of  passing  from  an  in- 
convertible paper  currency  back  to  specie  payment  except  through  revul- 
sion, disaster,  and  ruin  of  many  fortunes.  It  is  difficult  to  guess  where 
such  an  opinion  can  have  originated.  It  is  certainly  no  reason  for  adopting 
it,  that  England  was  once  guilty  of  the  enormous  folly  of  impoverishing 
thousands  of  her  people,  and  subjecting  multitudes  of  her  laborers  to  the 
verge  of  starvation,  by  unnaturally  forcing  specie  payment  when  she  was 
doing  very  well  without  it.  The  proposition  is  not  true.  Other  nations 
have  brought  their  inconvertible  paper  to  a  par  with  gold  without  any 
such  wide-spread  disaster.  France  more  than  doubled  her  bank  circulation 
in  her  late  fierce  struggle  with  Germany,  and  made  the  paper  a  legal  tender; 
and  yet,  though  overtaken  by  such  calamities  as  have  come  upon  scarcely 
any  other  nation  of  modern  tinier,  her  paper  money  has  never  gone  more 
than  three  per  cent  below  gold,  and  it  is  now  so  near  par  that  she  could 
resume  with  the  utmost  safety,  if  she  were  so  disposed. 

It  is  true  we  have  not  been  so  wise  as  France  in  the  management  of 
our  financial  affairs.  Had  we,  like  her,  made  our  Government  notes  a 
legal  tender  for  all  dues  to  and  from  the  Government,  as  well  as  between 
individuals,  there  probably  would  never  have  been  a  time,  except  while 
the  fate  of  the  nation  itself  was  in  doubt,  when  they  would  have  been  more 
than  a  nominal  per  cent  below  gold. 

75 


My  own  conviction  is  that  if  the  Government  would  at  once  repeal 
the  resumption  act,  and  cease  its  unnatural  endeavors  in  that  direction; 
if  it  would  decree  that  the  treasury-notes  now  used  as  currency  should  be 
received  for  all  Government  dues,  the  present  enforced  idleness  and  waste 
of  labor  would  come  to  an  end,  and  a  more  prosperous  state  would  begin 
to  be  manifest.  If  it  be  asked  how,  in  that  case,  we  are  to  pay  the  interest 
on  our  bonds  which  we  have  promised  to  pay  in  gold,  I  reply  we  are  to  pay 
it  as  we  do  now.  Gold  has  now  to  be  bought  and  paid  into  the  treasury 
in  the  form  of  duties,  and  with  this  gold  the  interest  is  paid.  I  know  no 
reason  why  the  Government  cannot  buy  gold  as  cheaply  as  private  citizens. 
Besides,  when  our  paper  money  comes  to  be  taken  for  all  Government 
dues,  it  will  doubtless  appreciate  so  nearly  to  the  value  of  gold  that  the 
latter  can  be  more  easily  secured  than  now. 

As  to  the  amount  of  money  in  circulation,  I  have  no  doubt  that  there 
is  at  present  quite  sufficient  for  all  the  business  at  present  being  done. 
But  with  the  restoration  of  business  prosperity  there  would  certainly  be 
a  demand  for  more  than  is  now  available.  That  there  should  be  an  expan- 
sion somewhere  nearly  up  to  the  limits  reached  before  contraction  began, 
seems  not  unreasonable;  but  let  some  limit  for  the  present  be  fixed  with 
the  opportunity  to  fund  any  surplus  below  that,  which  may  occasionally 
exist  in  a  low  interest-bearing  bond  made  reconvertible  into  currency  at 
the  option  of  the  holder.  Such  an  expansion,  as  it  seems  to  me,  is  the 
best  safeguard  we  can  have  against  an  unhealthy  inflation  which  is  far 
more  likely  to  take  place  in  the  credit  element  of  the  instrument  of  exchange, 
than  in  the  currency  element. 

Such  a  financial  system  would  have  the  advantage  of  being  a  National 
Currency.  The  advantage  consists  in  this,  that  it  is  not  liable  to  be  drawn 
away  by  foreign  exigencies,  thus  producing  fluctuations  in  prices  and 
various  damaging  derangements.  Its  volume  will  be  steady  and  stable, 
as  that  of  the  precious  metals  cannot  be.  Says  a  recent  San  Francisco 
commercial  paper:  "The  dullness  in  business  and  the  difficulty  of  obtain- 
ing money  on  what  has  been  at  other  times  deemed  unexceptionable  security, 
reminds  our  people  that  the  financial  problem  is  probably  the  most  im- 
portant that  can  occupy  their  attention.  The  essential  feature  of  that 
problem  is  the  retention  on  the  Pacific  coast  of  sufficient  of  the  precious 
metals  to  liberally  supply  the  rapidly  growing  needs  of  the  commercial 
and  industrial  system  of  the  people.  The  irregular  coin  movements  of 
the  past  year  have  been  highly  injurious  to  both.  How  to  regulate  them 
and  to  stop  excessive  drain  just  when  money  is  most  needed,  is  the  problem." 

This  evil  of  irregular  movement  and  draining  away  of  money  when  most 
needed  is  not  peculiar  to  California  finances;  it  is  inherent  in  any  system  of 
specie  currency,  and  is  the  source  of  no  small  proportion  of  the  commercial 
evils  in  those  countries  which  adopt  either  it,  or  that  of  a  specie  basis. 

If  it  be  asked  how  under  such  a  system  are  we  to  make  our  international 
exchange,  I  answer,  make  them  just  as  we  do  now.  We  should  aim  to 
make  our  exports,  pay  for  our  imports.  If  they  do  not,  the  balances  must 
be  paid  in  the  precious  metal,  and  these  will  be  exported  not  as  money, 
but  as  bullion.  The  money  of  the  world  which  figures  so  largely  in  argu- 
ments has  no  other  existence.  All  the  gold  and  silver  sent  from  this  country 
to  any  other,  has  to  be  purchased  here  with  some  commodity  and  whether 
sent  as  coin  or  bullion  it  is  received  there  only  .as  the  latter;  for  it  is  money 
only  here  as  their  coin  is  money  only  there.  Gold  and  silver  will  be  pur- 
chasable then  as  now;  the  only  difference  will  be  that  its  export  will  make 
no  difference  with  the  volume  of  our  circulating  medium  and  produce  no 
fluctuation  in  prices  and  no  commercial  convulsions. 

76 


Appendix  No.  2 


NATIONAL  LABOR  REFORM  PLATFORM  OF  1872. 


We  hold  that  all  political  power  is  inherent  in  the  people,  and  free 
government  founded  on  their  authority  and  established  for  their  benefit; 
that  all  citizens  are  equal  in  political  rights,  entitled  to  the  largest  religious 
and  political  liberty  compatible  with  the  good  order  of  society,  as  also 
the  use  and  enjoyment  of  the  fruits  of  their  labor  and  talents;  and  no  man 
or  set  of  men  is  entitled  to  exclusive  separable  endowments  and  privileges, 
or  immunities  from  the  Government,  but  in  consideration  of  public  services; 
and  any  laws  destructive  of  these  fundamental  principles  are  without 
moral  binding  force,  and  should  be  repealed.  And  believing  that  all  the 
evils  resulting  from  unjust  legislation  now  affecting  the  industrial  classes 
can  be  removed  by  the  adoption  of  the  principles  contained  in  the  follow- 
ing declaration,  therefore, 

RESOLVED,  That  it  is  the  duty  of  the  Government  to  establish  a 
just  standard  of  distribution  of  capital  and  labor  by  providing  a  purely 
National  circulating  medium,  based  on  the  faith  and  resources  of  the  Nation, 
issued  directly  to  the  people  without  the  intervention  of  any  system  of 
banking  corporations,  which  money  shall  be  legal  tender  in  the  payment 
of  all  debts,  public  and  private,  and  interchangeable  at  the  option  of  the 
holder  for  Government  Bonds  bearing  a  rate  of  interest  not  to  exceed  3.65 
per  cent,  subject  to  future  legislation  by  Congress. 

2.  That  the  National  Debt  should  be  paid  in  good  faith,  according 
to  the  original  contract,  at  the  earliest  option  of  the  Government,  without 
mortgaging  the  property  of  the  people  or  the  future  exigencies  of  labor, 
to  enrich  a  few  capitalists  at  home  and  abroad. 

3.  That  justice  demands  that  the  burdens  of  Government  should  be 
so  adjusted  as  to  bear  equally  on  all  classes,  and  that  the  exemption  from 
taxation  of  Government  Bonds  bearing  extravagant  rates  of  interest  is  a 
violation  of  all  just  principles  of  revenue  laws. 

4.  That  the  public  lands  of  the  United  States  belong  to  the  People, 
and  should  not  be  sold  to  individuals  nor  granted  to  corporations,  but 
should  be  held  as  a  sacred  trust  for  the  benefit  of  the  People,  and  should 
be  granted  the  landless  settlers  only,  in  amounts  not  exceeding  one  hundred 
and  sixty  acres  of  land. 

5.  That  Congress  should  modify  the  tariff  so  as  to  admit  free  such 
articles  of  common  use  as  we  can  neither  produce  nor  grow,  and  lay  duties 
for  revenue  mainly  upon  articles  of  luxury  and  upon  such  articles  of  manu- 
facture as  will,  we  having  the  raw  materials,  assist  in  further  developing 
the  resources  of  the  country. 

77 


6.  That  the  presence  in  our  country  of  Chinese  labor,  imported  by 
capitalists  in  large  numbers,  for  servile  use,  is  an  evil,  entailing  want  and 
its  attendant  train  of  misery  and  crime  on  all  classes  of  the  American 
People,  and  should  be  prohibited  by  legislation. 

7.  That  we  ask  for  the  enactment  of  a  law  by  which  all  mechanics 
and  day  laborers  employed  by  or  on  behalf  of  the  Government,  whether 
directly  or  indirectly,  through  persons,  firms,  or  corporations  contracting 
with  the  State,  shall  conform  to  the  reduced  standard  of  eight  hours  a  day, 
recently  adopted  by  Congress  for  National  employees,  and  also  for  an  amend- 
ment to  the  acts  of  incorporation  for  Cities  and  Towns  by  which  all  laborers 
and  mechanics  employed  at  their  expense  shall  conform  to  the  same  number 
of  hours. 

8.  That  the  enlightened  spirit  of  the  age  demands  the  abolition  of 
the  system  of  contract  labor  in  our  prisons  and  other  reformatory  in- 
stitutions. 

9.  That  the  protection  of  life,  liberty,  and  property  are  the  three 
cardinal  principles  of  Government,  and  the  first  two  are  more  sacred  than 
the  latter;  therefore  money  needed  for  prosecuting  wars  should,  as  it  is 
required,  be  assessed  and  collected  from  the  wealthy  of  the  country,  and 
not  entailed  as  a  burden  on  posterity. 

10.  That  it  is  the  duty  of  the  Goverment  to  exercise  its  power  over 
railroads  and  telegraph  corporations,  that  they  shall  not  in  any  case  be 
privileged  to  exact  such  rates  of  freight,  transportation,  or  charges,  by 
whatever  name,  as  may  bear  unduly  or  unequally  upon  the  producer  or 
consumer. 

11.  That  there  should  be  such  a  reform  in  the  civil  service  of  the 
National  Government  as  will  remove  it  beyond  all  partisan  influence,  and 
place  it  in  the  charge  and  under  the  direction  of  intelligent  and  competent 
business  men. 

12.  That  as  both  history  and  experience  teaches  us  that  power  ever 
seeks  to  perpetuate  itself  by  every  and  all  means,  and  that  its  prolonged 
possession  in  the  hands  of  one  person  is  always  dangerous  to  the  interests 
of  a  free  people,  and  believing  that  the  spirit  of  our  organic  laws  and  the 
stability  and  safety  of  our  free  institutions  are  best  obeyed  on  the  one 
hand,  and  secured  on  the  other,  by  a  regular  constitutional  change  in  the 
chief  of  the  country  at  each  election;  therefore,  we  are  in  favor  of  limiting 
the  occupancy  of  the  presidential  chair  to  one  term. 

13.  But  we  are  in  favor  of  granting  general   amnesty   and  restoring 
the  Union  at  once  on  the  basis  of  the  equality  of  rights  and  privileges  to 
all,  the  impartial  administration  of  justice  being  the  only  true  bond  of 
union  to  bind  the  States  together  and  restore  the  Government  of  the  People. 

14.  That  we  demand  the  subjection  of  the  military  to  the  civil  authori- 
ties, and  the  confinement  of  its  operations  to  National  purposes  alone. 

15.  That  we  deem  it  expedient  for  Congress  to  supervise  the  patent 
laws,  so  as  to  give  labor  more  fully  the  benefit  of  its  own  ideas  and  in- 
ventions. 

16.  That  fitness,  and  not  political  or  personal  considerations,  should 
be  the  only  recommendation  to  public  office,  either  appointive  or  elective, 
and  any  and  all  laws  looking  to  the  establishment  of  this  principle  are 
heartily  approved. 

78 


NATIONAL  GREENBACK  PLATFORM  OF  1880 

The  Civil  Government  should  guarantee  the  divine  right  of  every 
laborer  to  the  results  of  his  toil,  thus  enabling  the  producers  of  wealth  to 
provide  themselves  with  the  means  for  physical  comfort,  and  facilities 
for  mental,  social,  and  moral  culture;  and  we  condemn,  as  unworthy  of 
our  civilization,  the  barbarism  which  imposes  upon  wealth-producers  a 
state  of  drudgery  as  the  price  of  a  bare  animal  existence.  Notwithstanding 
the  enormous  increase  of  productive  power  by  the  universal  introduction 
of  labor-saving  machinery  and  the  discovery  of  new  agents  for  the  increase 
of  wealth,  the  task  of  the  laborer  is  scarcely  lightened,  the  hours  of  toil 
are  but  little  shortened,  and  few  producers  are  lifted  from  poverty  into 
comfort  and  pecuniary  independence.  The  associated  monopolies,  the 
international  syndicates,  and  other  income  classes  demand  dear  money, 
cheap  labor,  and  a  strong  Government,  and,  hence,  a  weak  people.  Cor- 
porate control  of  the  volume  of  money  has  been  the  means  of  dividing 
society  into  hostile  classes,  of  an  unjust  distribution  of  the  products  of 
labor,  and  of  building  up  monopolies  of  associated  capital,  endowed  with 
power  to  confiscate  private  property.  It  has  kept  money  scarce;  and 
the  scarcity  of  money  enforces  debt,  trade,  and  public  and  corporate  loans; 
debt  engenders  usury,  and  usury  ends  in  the  bankruptcy  of  the  borrower. 
Other  results  are  deranged  markets,  uncertainty  in  manufacturing  enter- 
prises and  agriculture,  precarious  and  intermittent  employment  for  the 
laborer,  industrial  war,  increasing  pauperism  and  crime,  and  the  con- 
sequent intimidation  and  disfranchisement  of  the  producer,  and  a  rapid 
declension  into  corporate  feudalism.  Therefore,  We  declare: 

First,  That  the  right  to  make  and  issue  money  is  a  sovereign  power, 
to  be  maintained  by  the  people  for  their  common  benefit.  The  delegation 
of  this  right  to  corporations  is  a  surrender  of  the  central  attribute  of  sover- 
eignty, void  of  constitutional  sanction,  and  conferring  upon  a  subordinate 
and  irresponsible  power  an  absolute  dominion  over  industry  and  commerce. 
All  money,  whether  metallic  or  paper,  should  be  issued,  and  its  volume 
controlled,  by  the  Government,  and  not  by  or  through  banking  corporations; 
and,  when  so  issued,  should  be  a  full  legal  tender  for  all  debts,  public  and 
private. 

Second,  That  the  bonds  of  the  United  States  should  not  be  refunded, 
but  paid  as  rapidly  as  practicable,  according  to  contract.  To  enable  the 
Government  to  meet  these  obligations,  legal-tender  currency  should  be 
substituted  for  the  notes  of  the  National  Banks,  the  National  Banking 
System  abolished,  and  the  unlimited  coinage  of  silver,  as  well  as  gold, 
established  by  law. 

Third,  That  labor  should  be  so  protected  by  National  and  State 
authority  as  to  equalize  its  burdens  and  insure  a  just  distribution  of  its  re- 
sults. The  eight-hour  law  of  Congress  should  be  enforced;  the  sanitary 
condition  of  industrial  establishments  placed  under  rigid  control;  the  com- 
petition of  contract  convict  labor  abolished;  a  bureau  of  labor  statistics 
established;  factories,  mines,  and  workshops  inspected;  the  employment 
of  children  under  fourteen  years  of  age  forbidden;  and  wages  paid  in  cash. 

Fourth,  Slavery  being  simply  cheap  labor,  and  cheap  labor  being 
simply  slavery,  the  importation  and  presence  of  Chinese  serfs  necessarily 
tends  to  brutalize  and  degrade  American  labor;  therefore  immediate  steps 
should  be  taken  to  abrogate  the  Burlingame  Treaty. 

79 


Fifth,  Railroad  land  grants  forfeited  by  reason  of  non-fulfillment  of 
contract  should  be  immediately  reclaimed  by  the  government;  and  hence- 
forth the  public  domain  reserved  exclusively  as  homes  for  actual  settlers. 

Sixth,  It  is  the  duty  of  Congress  to  regulate  interstate  commerce.  All 
lines  of  communication  and  transportation  should  be  brought  under  such 
legislative  control  as  shall  secure  moderate,  fair,  and  uniform  rates  for 
passenger  and  freight  traffic. 

Seventh,  We  denounce  as  destructive  to  property  and  dangerous  to 
liberty,  the  action  of  the  old  parties  in  fostering  and  sustaining  gigantic 
land,  railroad,  and  money  corporations,  and  monoplies  invested  with  and 
exercising  powers  belonging  to  the  Government,  and  yet  not  responsible 
to  it  for  the  manner  of  their  exercise. 

Eighth,  That  the  Constitution,  in  giving  Congress  the  power  to 
borrow  money,  to  declare  war,  to  raise  and  support  armies,  to  provide  and 
maintain  a  navy,  never  intended  that  the  men  who  loaned  their  money  for 
an  interest  consideration  should  be  preferred  to  the  soldiers  and  sailors  who 
perilled  their  lives  and  shed  their  blood  on  land  and  sea  in  defense  of  their 
country;  and  we  condemn  the  cruel  class-legislation  of  the  Republican 
Party,  which,  while  professing  great  gratitude  to  the  Soldier,  has  most 
unjustly  discriminated  against  him  and  in  favor  of  the  Bondholder. 

Ninth,  All  property  should  bear  its  just  proportion  of  taxation,  and 
we  demand  a  graduated  income  tax. 

Tenth,  We  denounce  as  dangerous  the  efforts  everywhere  manifest 
to  restrict  the  right  of  suffrage. 

Eleventh,  We  are  opposed  to  an  increase  of  the  standing  army  in  time 
of  peace,  and  the  insidious  scheme  to  establish  an  enormous  military  power 
under  the  guise  of  militia  laws. 

Twelfth,  We  demand  absolute  democratic  rules  for  the  government 
of  Congress,  placing  all  representatives  of  the  people  upon  an  equal 
footing,  and  taking  away  from  committees  a  veto  power  greater  than  that  of 
the  President. 

Thirteenth,  We  demand  a  Government  of  the  People,  by  the  People 
and  for  the  People,  instead  of  a  Government  of  the  Bondholder,  by  the 
Bondholder,  and  for  the  Bondholder;  and  we  denounce  every  attempt  to 
stir  up  sectional  strife  as  an  effort  to  conceal  monstrous  crimes  against 
the  people. 

Fourteenth,  In  the  furtherance  of  these  ends  we  ask  the  co-operation 
of  all  fair-minded  people.  We  have  no  quarrel  with  individuals,  wage  no 
war  on  classes,  but  only  against  vicious  institutions.  We  are  not  content 
to  endure  further  discipline  from  our  present  actual  rulers,  who,  having 
dominion  over  money,  over  transportation,  over  land  and  labor,  over  the 
press  and  the  machinery  of  Government,  wield  unwarrantable  power  over 
our  institutions  and  over  life  and  property. 

Fifteenth,  That  every  citizen  of  due  age,  sound  mind,  and  not  a 
felon,  be  fully  enfranchised,  and  that  this  resolution  be  referred  to  the 
states,  with  recommendation  of  their  favorable  consideration. 


PEOPLES  PARTY  NATIONAL  PLATFORM  OF  1896 

The  People's  Party,  assembled  in  National  Convention,  reaffirms  its 
allegiance  to  the  principles  declared  by  the  Founders  of  the  Republic,  and 
also  to  the  fundamental  principles  of  just  Government  as  enunciated  in 
the  Platform  of  the  Party  in  1892. 

We  recognize  that  through  the  connivance  of  the  present  and  preceding 
administrations  the  country  has  reached  a  crisis  in  its  National  life,  as 
predicted  in  our  declaration  four  years  ago,  and  that  prompt  and  patriotic 
action  is  the  supreme  duty  of  the  hour. 

We  realize  that,  while  we  have  political  independence,  our  financial 
and  industrial  independence  is  yet  to  be  attained  by  restoring  to  our  country 
the  constitutional  control  and  exercise  of  the  functions  necessary  to  a 
People's  Government,  which  functions  have  been  basely  surrendered  by 
our  public  servants  to  corporate  monopolies.  The  influence  of  European 
money-changers  has  been  more  potent  in  shaping  legislation  than  the 
voice  of  the  American  People.  Executive  power  and  patronage  have  been 
used  to  corrupt  our  legislatures  and  defeat  the  will  of  the  people,  and  pluto- 
cracy has  been  enthroned  upon  the  ruins  of  democracy. 

To  restore  the  Government  intended  by  the  Fathers,  and  for  the  welfare 
and  prosperity  of  this  and  future  generations,  we  demand  the  establish- 
ment of  an  economic  and  financial  system  which  shall  make  us  masters 
of  our  own  affairs  and  independent  of  European  control,  by  the  adoption 
of  the  following  declaration  of  principles: — 

As  TO  MONEY,  BONDS,  AND  INCOME-TAX. 

1.  We  demand  a  National  Money,  safe  and  sound  issued  by  the 
General  Government  only,  without  the  intervention  of  banks  of  issue,  to 
be  a  full  legal  tender  for  all  debts,  public  and  private,  and  a  just,  equitable 
and  efficient  means  of  distribution  direct  to  the  people  and  through  the 
lawful  disbursements  of  the  Government. 

2.  We  demand  the  free  and  unrestricted  coinage  of  silver  and  gold 
at  the  present  legal  ratio  of  16  to  1,  without  waiting  for  the  consent  of 
foreign  nations. 

3.  We  demand  that  the  volume  of  circulating  medium  be  speedily 
increased  to  an  amount  sufficient  to  meet  the  demands  of  the  business 
population  of  this  country,  and  to  restore  the  just  level  of  prices  of  labor 
and  production. 

4.  We  denounce  the  sale  of  bonds  and  the  increase  of  the  public 
interest-bearing  bond  debt  made  by  the  present  administration  as  un- 
necessary and  without  authority  of  law,  and  that  no  more  bonds  be  issued 
except  by  specific  act  of  Congress. 

5.  We  demand  such  legal  legislation  as  will  prevent  the  demonetization 
of  the  lawful  money  of  the  United  States  by  private  contract. 

6.  We  demand  that  the  Government,  in  payment  of  its  obligations, 
shall  use  its  option  as  to  the  kind  of  lawful  money  in  which  they  are  to  be 
paid,  and  we  denounce  the  present  and  preceding  administrations  for 
surrendering  this  option  to  the  holders  of  Government  obligations. 

7.  We  demand  a  graduated  income-tax,  to  the  end  that  aggregated 
wealth  shall  bear  its  just  proportion  of  taxation,  and  we  denounce  the 

81 


recent  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  relative  to  the  income-tax  law  as  a 
misinterpretation  of  the  Constitution  and  an  invasion  of  the  rightful 
powers  of  Congress  over  the  subject  of  taxation. 

8.  We  demand  that  Postal  Savings  Banks  be  established  by  the  Gov- 
ernment for  the  safe  deposit  of  the  savings  of  the  people  and  to  facilitate 
exchange. 

GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OF  RAILROADS  AND  TELEGRAPH. 

1.  Transportation  being  a  means  of  exchange  and  a  public  necessity, 
the  Government  should  own  and  operate  the  railroads  in  the  interest  of 
the  people  and  on  a  non-partisan  basis,  to  the  end  that  all  may  be  accorded 
the  same  treatment  in  transportation,  and  that  the  tyranny  and  political 
power  now  exercised  by  the  great  railroad  corporations,  which  result  in 
the  impairment,  if  not  the  destruction  of  the  political  rights  and  personal 
liberties  of  the  citizens,  may  be  destroyed.     Such  ownership  is  to  be  accom- 
plished gradually,  in  a  manner  consistent  with  sound  public  policy. 

2.  The  interest  of  the  United  States  in  the  public  highways,  built 
with  public  moneys,  and  the  proceeds  of  extensive  grants  of  land  to  the 
Pacific  railroads  should  never  be  alienated,  mortgaged,  or  sold,  but  guarded 
and  protected  for  the  general  welfare,  as  provided  by  the  laws  organizing 
such  railroads.     The  foreclosure  of  existing  liens  of  the  United   States 
on  these  roads  should  at  once  follow  default  in  the  payment  of  the  debt 
of  the  companies,  and  at  the  foreclosure  sales  of  said  roads  the  Government 
shall  purchase  the  same,  if  it  become  necessary  to  protect  its  interests 
therein,  or  if  they  can  be  purchased  at  a  reasonable  price;  and  the  Govern- 
ment shall  operate  said  railroads  as  public  highways,  for  the  benefit  of  the 
whole  and  not  in  the  interest  of  the  few,  under  suitable  provisions  for 
protection  of  life  and  property,  giving  to  all  transportation  interests  equal 
privileges  and  equal  rates  for  fares  and  freight. 

3.  We  denounce  the  present  infamous  schemes  for  refunding  these 
debts,   and  demand  that  the  laws  now  applicable  thereto  be  executed 
and  administered  according  to  their  true  intent  and  spirit. 

4.  The  telegraph,  like  the  post-office  system,  being  a  necessity  for 
the  transmission  of  news,  should  be  owned  and  operated  by  the  Government 
in  the  interest  of  the  people. 

LAND,  HOMES  AND  PACIFIC  RAILROAD  GRANTS. 

1.  The  true  policy  demands  that  the  National  and  State  Legislation 
shall  be  such  as  will  ultimately  enable  every  prudent  and  industrious 
citizen  to  secure  a  home,  and  therefore  the  land  should  not  be  monopolized 
for  speculative  purposes.     All  lands  now  held  by  railroads  and  other  cor- 
porations in  excess  of  their  actual  needs  should,  by  lawful  means,  be  re- 
claimed by  the  Government  and  held  for  actual  settlers  only,  and  private 
land  monopoly,  as  well  as  alien  ownership,  should  be  prohibited. 

2.  We  condemn  the  frauds  by  which  the  land-grants  to  the  Pacific 
railroad  companies  have,  through  the  connivance  of  the  Interior  Depart- 
ment, robbed  multitudes  of  bona  fide  settlers  of  their  homes  and  miners 
of  their  claims,  and  we  demand  legislation  by  Congress  which  will  enforce 
the  exemption  of  mineral  land  from  such  grants  after  as  well  as  before 
the  patent. 

3.  We  demand  that  bona-fide  settlers  on  all  public  lands  be  granted 
free  homes,  as  provided  in  the  National  Homestead  Law,  and  that  no  excep- 
tion be  made  in  the  case  of  Indiana  reservations  when  opened  for  settle- 
ment, and  that  all  lands  not  now  patented  come  under  this  demand. 

82 


DIRECT  LEGISLATION  AND  GENERAL  PLANKS. 

We  favor  a  system  of  direct  legislation  through  the  initiative  and 
referendum,  under  proper  constitutional  safeguards. 

We  demand  the  election  of  President,  Vice-President,  and  United 
States  senators  by  a  direct  vote  of  the  people. 

We  tender  to  the  patriotic  people  of  Cuba  our  deepest  sympathy  in 
their  heroic  struggle  for  political  freedom  and  independence,  and  we  believe 
the  time  has  come  when  the  United  States,  the  great  republic  of  the  world, 
should  recognize  that  Cuba  is  and  of  right  ought  to  be  a  free  and  inde- 
pendent State. 

We  favor  home  rule  in  the  Territories  and  the  District  of  Columbia, 
and  the  early  admission  of  the  Territories  as  States. 

All  public  salaries  should  be  made  to  correspond  to  the  price  of  labor 
and  its  products. 

In  times  of  great  industrial  depression,  idle  labor  should  be  employed 
on  public  works  as  far  as  practicable. 

The  arbitrary  course  of  the  courts  in  assuming  to  imprison  citizens 
for  indirect  contempt  and  ruling  by  injunction  should  be  prevented  by 
proper  legislation. 

We  favor  just  pensions  for  our  disabled  Union  soldiers. 

Believing  that  the  elective  franchise  and  an  untrammeled  ballot  are 
essential  to  a  Government,  of,  for,  and  by  the  people,  the  People's  Party 
condemns  the  wholesale  system  of  disfranchisement  adopted  in  some 
states,  as  unrepublican  and  undemocratic,  and  we  declare  it  to  be  the 
duty  of  the  several  State  Legislatures  to  take  such  action  as  will  secure  a 
full,  free  and  fair  ballot  and  an  honest  count. 

FINANCIAL  QUESTION  "THE  PRESSING  ISSUE". 

While  the  foregoing  propositions  constitute  the  Platform  upon  which 
our  Party  stands,  and  for  the  vindication  of  which  its  organization  will 
be  maintained,  we  recognize  that  the  great  and  pressing  issue  of  the  pending 
campaign,  upon  which  the  present  presidential  election  will  turn,  is  The 
Financial  Question,  and  upon  this  great  and  specific  issue  between  the 
parties  we  cordially  invite  the  aid  and  co-operation  of  all  organizations 
and  citizens  agreeing  with  us  upon  this  vital  question. 


Index  to  Names  and  Subjects 


Adams,  Charles  Francis 16 

Allen,  Thomas  S 33 

Allen,  "Farmer"  William 14 

Allis,  Edward  P 4, 21, 29, 30, 31, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 

41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61 

In  Milwaukee  Sentinel,  1875 17, 18, 19 

In  Milwaukee  Sentinel,  1877 39 

Madison  Address , 20, 21 

A.  M.  Thompson's  opinion  of 34 

E.  P.  &  Co 37 

Address  at  Portage,  1877 40, 41,  51 

Address,  Academy  of  Music,  Milwaukee 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47 

Address  at  Toledo 54 

Address  to  American  Banker's  Association 48 

Upon  the  election  results  in  1877 50,  51 

Letter  to  Greenback  State  Committee 54, 55 

Upon  the  vote  of  1878 56 

Proposed  for  President  in  1880 57, 59 

Promised  Democratic  endorsement 36 

Anderson,  Dr.  Wendell  A 35 

Anthony,  A.  R 29 

Anthony,  Susan  B 29, 58 

Academy  of  Music,  (Milwaukee)  meeting 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47,  48 

American  Bankers'  Association,  Controversy  with 48, 49 

Army,  Standing,  and  Militia,  opposition  to 80 

Baird,  Henry  Gary,  financial  writer 72 

Barnum,  M.  H 58 

Barrows,  A.  R 53 

Bastiat  quoted 64 

Bentley,  John 39 

Benton,  E.  H 39,41,54,57 

Binckley,  John  M 39, 40 

Bliss,  Wm.  D.  P.  (ed.  Encyc.  Social  Reform) 38 

Bragg,  Gen.  Edward  S 35 

Vote  for  nom.  for  prest.  1896 59 

Brigham,  George  B 39 

84 


Bristow,  Benjamin  H.,  Sec.  Treasury 13 

Brown,  B.  Gratz 11 

Bryan,  William  Jennings 62 

Bryant,  Edwin  E 33 

Bryant,  Sherburn 39 

Buell,  James,  Sec.  Am.  Bankers'  Ass'n 48, 49 

Burchard,  Geo.  W 33 

Burnham,  George 29, 39, 41 

Butler,  Gen.  Benjamin  F 14, 59, 61 

Banks— (See  National  Banks  and  Postal  Banks) 44, 45,  77,  79,  81 

Banker's  Almanac,  quoted 67 

Banks,  Natural  enemies  of  labor 8, 42 

Bank  of  England 45,47,74,75 

Bank  of  North  America 6 

Boston  Fire  and  Panic  of  1873 12 

Bryan  Democracy 62 

Cairnes,  John  Elliot,  Economist 66 

Camp,  H.  H 46 

Campbell,  Alexander,  Greenback  "Moses" 6 

Gary,  Gen.  Samuel  F.,  G.  B.  candidate  for  Vice-President 31, 42,50,  52 

Carpenter,  S.  D.  ("Pump") 19,20 

Castle,  F.  G 40 

Gate,  George  W 41 

Chase,  Enoch 39 

Chase,  Salmon  P.,  Justice  Supreme  Court 10 

Chase,  Solon 14, 59 

Clark,  W.  B 33 

Cleveland,  Grover,  President 62 

Cooke,  Jay  &  Co., 12 

Cooper,  Peter,  G.  B.  Candidate  for  President 9, 31, 42 

Cooper,  Thomas  V.  "American  Politics" 14 

Crane,  C.  E 33 

Crosby,  Charles  F 40 

Curtin,  Andrew  G.,  Gov.  of  Penn 16 

Cutter,  W.  G 39 

Chicago  Fire  and  Panic  of  1873 12 

Civil  Service  Reform 78 

Civil  War 8, 10, 17,37 

Commercial  Times,  Milwaukee 19, 40, 42, 43, 51 

Congress,  Greenbackers  in 56 

Conservation  of  Public  Land  for  Settlers 77,  80,  82 

Contract  Labor 78 

85 


Corporations,  Federal  Control  proposed 11, 12, 42, 78, 80 

"Crime  of  73" 12,32,61 

Currency  Question,  The,  (pamph.  by  G.  M.  Steele) 38, 64 

Currency,  per  capita 74 

Davis,  David,  Justice  Sup.  Ct.,  U.  S.  Senator 8, 11, 12, 16 

Dewey,  Nelson 20 

Dillaye,  Stephen  D 59 

Dore,  Timothy 39 

Dousman,  H.  L 33 

Dwight,  D.  W 39 

Debt  and  Progress 43 

Delegates  to  Indianapolis,  1876,  from  Wisconsin 30 

Democrat,  Liberal,  La  Crosse,  Wis 52 

Democrats,  "Straight  Out",  in  1872 11 

Democrat  Party 11, 14, 35, 62 

Direct  election  of  President,  etc.,  demanded 61, 83 

Direct  Legislation 83 

Easterly,  George 21, 38 

Eight  hour  day  for  labor 78, 79 

Electoral  Commission 31 

England  (see  Great  Britain) 27,  28, 45, 46, 71, 74,  75 

Fawcett,  M.,  Economist 66 

Fenton,  Reuben  E 16, 17 

Field,  W.  W 19 

Finklenburg,  A 33 

Foster,  G.  H 30 

Farmers'  Alliance 8 

Federal  Control  of  Corporations 11, 12, 42, 78, 80 

Financial  Review,  New  York 68 

First  National  Bank  of  Milwaukee 46 

"Fond  du  Lac  Platform"  (Dem.)  1877 35 

France,  finances  of 75 

Free  Press,  Eau  Claire,  Wis 51 

Free  Silver 6, 14, 62, 63, 79,  81 

Free  Soil  Party 16 

Fusion  disastrous 35, 62 

Garfield,  James  A.,  President 59 

Godfrey,  George 39, 40 

Gilbert,  J.  T 19,20,39 


Goodwin,  Geo.  B 61 

Grant,  President  U.  S 10, 12, 13 

Greeley,  Horace 7, 8, 11, 16, 17 

Gazette,  Neenah 52 

German  vote  of  Wisconsin 36 

Globe,  Boston 49 

Gold  Democrats 12, 62 

Gold  production  and  currency 34, 62, 63,  65 

Government  Ownership  of  Railroads  and  Telegraph 82 

Great  Britian,  currency  per  capita  (see  England) 66,  69,  71,  74 

"Greenbacks",  created  by  Act  of  1862 10 

Greenback  Party,  National 3, 14, 15, 19, 31, 58 

Greenbackers  in  Congress  and  congressional  candidates 14, 59,  61 

Greenback  Movement  in  Wisconsin,  (See  Wisconsin 

also) 3, 15, 16,29,42,53,54 

Greenbacker,  The  Wisconsin 39, 50, 52 

Greenback,  or  Greenback-Labor  Party,  The  National,  organized 54,  55 

Greenback  National  Convention  of  1880,  Chicago 58,  59 

Greenback  National  candidates 59 

Greenback  National  Platform  1880 79 

Harrison,  Benjamin,  President 62 

Harrison,  S.  A 39 

Hayden,  Henry 40, 41 

Hayes,  Rutherford  B.,  President 31,57 

Helmer,  A.  M 39 

Hilbert,  H.  J 39 

Hills,  S.  S 39 

Hoard,  William  D.,  Gov 33 

Homer,  A.  N 30 

Howe,  Timothy  O.,  U.  S.  Senator 49, 50 

Hungerford,  George  E 40 

Home  Rule 83 

"Honest  Money",  Wisconsin  Republican  declaration 29 

Income  Tax 42,80,81 

Independent,  Winchester,  111.  prints  Allis's  speech 29 

Independent  Party,  National,  organized 30 

Indianapolis  Platform,  1872 9,  79 

Indiana  Republicans  declare  for  repeal  of  resumption  act 13 

Industrial  Congress  of  the  United  States  1873 9 

Initiative  and  Referendum 83 

Injunction 83 

87 


Inter-convertible  bond  theory. .  .7, 11, 18, 22, 25, 26, 28, 34, 38, 42, 73, 74, 77 
Iron  Age,  Chicago,  prints  Allis's  speech 29 

Jenison,  Dr.  C.  O 39 

Jevons,  William  S.,  Economist 66, 69, 71 

Jones,  A.  D 33 

Judd,  T.  H 39 

Julian,  George  W.,  Father  of  Homestead  Act 16 

Journal  of  Commerce,  San  Francisco,  on  prices 69 

Kearney,  Dennis  ("Sand  Lot  Orator") 58 

Kellogg,  Edward 6, 7, 8, 9, 1 1, 38 

"Usury,  The  Evil  and  The  Remedy",  1843 7 

"Labor  and  Capital",  1883 7 

Kelly,  William  D.,  Pennsylvania  Congressman 69 

Kennedy,  William 39 

Kilbinnen,  P.  S 40 

King,  G.  W 20, 21 

Kingston,  John  T.  sen'r 21 

Knights  of  Labor 8, 9 

Lamborn,  Dr.  J 39 

Law,  John,  French  financier 6 

Lee,  G.  W 21, 30, 39 

Lewis,  James  T.,  Gov 33 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  President 12, 16 

Luchsinger,  John 33 

Lyon,  R.  C 39 

"Labor  and  Capital",  by  Kellogg 7 

Labor,  Independent,  Convention  1872 8 

Labor,  Independent,  Platform  1872 9,  11, 77 

Labor,  Knights  of 8, 9 

Labor  Laws  demanded 54,  55,  78,  79,  83 

Labor  Movement.     Origin  of  the 6, 8, 11 

"Labor  Reform"  Party  Platform  of  1872 11,  77 

Labor  Unions,  originated  labor  movement 8 

Legal  Tender  decision  of  Supreme  Court,  1869 10 

Legislature,  (Wis.)  1878,  Resolution 54 

Liberal  Republicans  and  Democrats  of  1872: 11, 16 

London  Clearing  House  transactions 71 

Maffit,  F.  W 40 

Mallory,  James  A.,  Dem   Candidate  for  Governor 35,39,41 


Martin,  A.  P 39 

Martin,  G.  P 39 

May,  Reuben,  G.  B.  Candidate  for  Governor 39, 40, 56 

McClure,  Col.  A.  K 16 

McGraw,  E.  M 21 

McKee's  "National  Conventions  and  Platforms" 30,59 

McKinley,  William,  President 12, 62 

Meehan,  James 53 

Meyer,  E.  O 39 

Miner,  Eliphalet  S 21 

Mitchell,  Alexander,  referred  to 44, 45, 72 

Montgomery,  James 39 

Morgan,  D.  E 40 

Market  comparisons, 67,  68,  69,  70 

Milwaukee  Delegation  to  Portage  Convention  off  1877 39 

Milwaukee  Republican  Ratification  Meeting  repudiates  State  Platform 

of  1877 34 

Nabor,  Herman 20 

Nazro,  John,  Milwaukee  merchant 19,  37 

Nichol,  Thomas  M 50 

Nixon,  William  Penn,  Ed.  Chicago  Inter-Ocean 58 

Northrop,  B.  B 33 

Norton,  S.  F.,  Ed.  Chicago  G.  B.  Sentinel 38 

Noyes,  Rolla  E 40 

National  Banks 47, 61, 62, 79 

News,  Milwaukee 51 

Newspapers,  (Wis.)  Comment  in  1877 51, 52 

Northwestern  Miller,  La  Crosse 52 

Northwestern,  The  Oshkosh 52 

O'Connor,  Charles,  Candidate  for  President 11 

Orledge,  William 19,21,30 

Orton,  Harlow  S.,  Judge 20,21,29,30,41 

Orton,  John  J 39 

Osborne,  J.  H 30, 41 

Palmer,  Gen.  John  M 11 

Parker,  Joel,  candidate  for  Vice-President 8 

Paul,  George  H 53 

Petersilea,  Edwin 58 

Phillips,  Wendell 16 

Pierce,  R.  W 39 

89 


Pomeroy,  Mark  M.  ("Brick") 57,58 

Porter,  James 39 

Pound,  Thad.  C 33 

Price,  W.  T 33 

Putnam,  Mary  Kellogg 7 

Panic  of  1873 12 

Panic  of  1907 12,  63 

People's  Party 4, 8, 61 

People's  Party  National  Convention  1896,  Official  Souvenir 6,  61 

People's  Party,  National  Platform  1896 81 

Pilot,  Boston 49 

Portage  Greenback  State  Convention,  July  4,  1877 39, 40, 41,42 

Postal  Savings  Banks 82 

President  by  direct  vote 61, 83 

President  for  one  time  only 78 

Prohibition  Party 11 

Quarles,  J.  V 33 

Ray,  Charles 33 

Ries,  Florian 33 

Rublee,  Horace,  Chairman  Rep.  State  Com 33, 49 

Rusk,  J.  M.,  Gov 33 

"Rag  Baby" 23, 58 

Railroads,   Government  Ownership 82 

Register,  Whitewater 52 

Republican  Party.  .3, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 29, 31, 35, 36, 39, 50, 53, 62 

Platform  of  1876. 13 

Wisconsin  declaration  for  "Honest  Money" 29 

Wisconsin  Platform  of  1877 32, 33, 49 

Wisconsin  Platform  Committee  of  1877 33 

Wisconsin  ratification  meeting  repudiates  platform 34 

Resolutions,  Currency,  of  Wisconsin  Legislature  of  1878 ....  54,  55,  56 

Resumption  of  specie  payment 

9,11,12,13,18,20,25,28,32,33,34,35,41,47,54 

Rules,  democratic  favored  for  Congress 80 

Schilling,  Robert 6, 8, 9, 50, 60 

Scholl,  J.  H ; 39 

Schurz,  Carl 16, 17 

Schwartz,  William 41 

Sellers,  M 20 

Seymour,  Horatio,  Candidate  for  President 17 

Sherman,  C.  P 39 

90 


Sherman,  John,  Sec.  of  Treasury 56 

Sholes,  C.  L 39 

Simonds,  C 39 

Smith,  Angus 33 

Smith,  R.  C 40 

Smith,  William  E.,  Gov 35,  52 

Spence,  Thomas  W 33 

Spooner,  John  C 33 

Stearns,  I.  H 39 

Steele,  G.  M.,  Greenback  writer 4, 38, 41, 52, 64 

Stewart,  A.  T.,  New  York  merchant 72 

Stilson,  Eli 21 

Storm,  A.  W 40 

Sumner,  William  G.,  Prof.,  Economist 67 

San  Francisco  Earthquake  and  Panic  of  1907 12 

Sentinel,  Milwaukee 17,39,40,49,51,52,58 

Sentinel,  Chicago,  (Greenback)  on  Allis  for  President 38, 57 

Silver  Demonetized 12, 32 

Silver  Republicans 62 

Silver,  Unlimited  coinage,  and  remonetization  demanded 

14,41,42,55,56,61,62,63,81 

Socialist  Democrats 32, 35, 53, 55, 58 

"Soft  Money" 29 

Standard,  Oshkosh,  (Greenback) 58 

State  Journal 33 

Supreme  Court  decision  on  legal  tender,  1869 10 


Taft,  William  H.,  President • 63 

Taylor,  H.  A 33 

Thompson,  A.  M.  quoted 32, 33, 34, 50 

Trumbull.  Lyman 16, 17 

Telegraph,  Government  ownership 82 

Times,  Leavenworth,  prints  Allis's  speech 29 

Toledo  Convention  1878 54, 55 

Trades  Unions 8 

Tribune,  Chicago,  quoted 29, 31 


Utley,  Col.  William  L.,  G.  B.  Cand.  for  Governor 61 

Unlimited  coinage  of  Silver  and  Gold 14,  79 

"Usury,  The  Evil  and  The  Remedy"— Kellogg 7 

91 


Vanderbilt,  Cornelius 72 

Van  Steenwyk,  G 33 

Vincent,  Dr.  G.  R 40 

Vote  of  the  Nation 14, 59, 61, 62 

Vote  of  Wisconsin 7, 17, 31. 36, 56, 59, 61 

Wall,  Edward  C.,  presidential  candidate 59 

Walker,  Amasa,  Economist,  quoted 67, 68, 69, 74 

Weaver,  James  B.,  vote  for  president 14, 59, 61 

Webb,  Charles  M.,  Judge 33 

Wells,  David  A.,  Commissioner  of  Internal  Revenue 67 

West,  G.  O 30 

Weston,  Thomas 21 

Wight,  Dr.  O.  W 18 

Williams,  ("Blue  Jeans"),   Governor  of  Indiana 14 

Wright,  Hendrick  P 59 

Watertown  Greenback  Convention 57, 59, 60 

Watertown  Greenback  Platform 59, 60 

Wealth,  Science  of,   Walker 67,58 

Wisconsin  Democratic  Convention  1877 35 

Wisconsin  Democratic  ("Fond  du  Lac"  Platform)  1877 35 

Wisconsin  Greenbackers,  Chicago  Tribune  forecast 29 

Choose  delegates  to  Indianapolis,  1876 30 

Endorse  Allis  for  president 58 

First  platform 20 

In  legislature 53, 54 

Organize 19, 29 

Portage  Convention,  1877 34, 39, 40, 41, 42 

Prominent 4, 15 

Sparta  conference 39 

State  Committee 30, 39 

State  Ticket,  1877 41 

Wisconsin  Greenbacker,  The 39,50,51 

Woman's  suffrage 61,  80 

Women   delegates   in  Greenback  National   Convention   at   Chicago, 

1880 58 

Appendix — No.  1,  Steele's  pamphlet 64 

Appendix— No.  2,  Party  Platforms 77 


* 


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